


Let The More Loving One Be Me

by AngeloDiGrazia



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, British!Jason, Canon Divergent Family History, Dumb boys being dumb istg, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and maybe a little bit of angst, Frat Parties and Game Nights, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mention of injuries, Okay there’s a little blood at one point, One Night Stands, Post-Break Up, Slow Burn, different POVs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 56,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25580683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeloDiGrazia/pseuds/AngeloDiGrazia
Summary: “Are you trying to drunk talk physics to me?” Nico whispered back.“No...” He wrinkled his nose, closing his eyes with that complacent smile that made Nico want to slap it out of his lips. “I’m obviously succeeding.”______Just a little college AU based on this poem by W.H.Auden“Looking up at the stars, I know quite wellThat, for all they care, I can go to hell,But on earth indifference is the leastWe have to dread from man or beast.How should we like it were stars to burnWith a passion for us we could not return?If equal affection cannot be,Let the more loving one be me. “
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Jason Grace/Piper McLean, Jason Grace/Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano, Luke Castellan/Thalia Grace, Nico di Angelo & Jason Grace, Nico di Angelo/Jason Grace
Comments: 20
Kudos: 96





	1. Jason (Week 0 - Freshmen Orientation Week)

“ _So you want to know the difference_  
 _Between the broken and the lost.”_

_The Helio Sequence -_

Jason blindly reached for his phone, which was exactly where he’d left it the night before, by the edge of his shared bedside table. If anyone asked (and hopefully no one would) he peeked through a heavy eyelid to check the time before burying his nose back in his pillow for a couple more hours. The reality? He was still expecting to see the little green text bubble in the notification bar, with a very specific name attached to it.

But the texts didn’t come. Not anymore.

Jason had been a relatively functional wreck ever since his phone went silent and his relationship status had suddenly changed to _single_.

It was a rough summer, between the breakup and the endless silence of July and August spent back home, in sunny ol’ England. Every single one of his friends - the ones who were aware of his troubles - was out there enjoying their summers and had no time to ask how he was dealing with the depressing situation. And understandably so.

His only company for the whole of two months was his very calm and collected stepmother who, somehow, made it hard for him to mope around the house. He loved her company, which was why he put himself through summers of quiet readings and poolside brunches while they watched the skyline of the city in the distance. But June Grace’s peaceful aura was not what he needed.

As an hopeless romantic, he needed the abrupt and punctuated sense of finality that came with his broken heart to forget the endless plans he’d made for him and Piper. He needed his friends. Or so he thought, because their tactics proved to be as effective as his stepmother’s soothing voice reading of _One Hundred Years of Solitude_.

“You _need_ to get out of this room.” Percy pleaded with him immediately after Jason stepped out of the bathroom after his shower. “At least come and have lunch with us.”

Jason lift his gaze from the dark wooden floor for the first time since he walked back into the bedroom, only to see Annabeth’s sympathetic smile greeting him behind a curtain of blonde curls. She sat at the feet of his roommate’s bed, her back resting against the wall and clutching her leather backpacks her chest as she waited for her boyfriend to finish tying his shoes. The subtle turn of her grey eyes giving him the same encouragement Percy tried to forcefully feed him through words.

These two were a package deal. When the Delta Nu extended an invitation for him to move into the Chapter House with his shinny new membership to the Fraternity, he had been warned by Grover Underwood of the implications of sharing quarters with the graduate’s best friend. He’d told Jason that privacy was a subjective concept with the couple, but that it was worth the trouble. Jason didn’t mind and also had to agree that it was worth sacrificing nudity for Annabeth’s company. He simply accepted he had to make himself half-decent before coming out of the bathroom.

She was a kind and reasonable person, and Jason didn’t have to try very hard to hold a conversation without her boyfriend’s presence. Sometimes he thought she was a lot easier to talk to because she offered more coherent advice than _I don’t know, man_ or _Sounds like you’re in a pickle_. Unfortunately, her wise words were reserved for his ex-girlfriend when it came to the matter of the breakup, who was the blonde’s Sorority Sister and one of her closest friends. Being the smart, loyal and well rounded young woman that she was, Annabeth had refrained from getting involved in Piper related conversations and this, in its essence, was one. 

“It’s been two days.” Jason half-heartedly protested, since he had only returned to Campus to move into the Frat House. He finished soaking the majority of the water out of his hair with the damp bath towel and turned his attention to his t-shirt drawer.

“It’s been two months!” Percy’s retaliation was quick and followed by a few seconds of silence where Jason caught Annabeth’s disapproving look through the reflection of his laptop screen. “Come on! I’m going to show my cousin around the Campus. He‘s alone, he could use a friend apart from me. It’s not like you have plans, anyway.”

“I’ll pass.” He remembered the mention of this cousin and he didn’t know if he had the energy to deal with two Jacksons in the same afternoon. Not yet. He was sure he’d have plenty of opportunities to be dragged to family lunches in the three years he had left of New Rome University. 

Percy groaned in defeat and slipped his naked arm through the sleeve of his varsity jacket, shooting a questioning glance at his girlfriend over his shoulder. She didn’t reply, but by the sudden squeaking of the mattress’s springs, she was ready to leave and, for her boyfriend, that was answer enough.

“Text me if you change your mind.” Jason could hear the question mark in the request and he nodded, despite knowing he would most likely _not_ change his mind. 

The rest of the morning went by with the indistinct sound of a random show he’d clicked on Netflix and the sporadic buzzing of his phone next to his pillow. He knew the cascade of notifications most likely came from Leo Valdez who, much like Percy, was trying to get him to leave the comfort of his room. 

The thought hit him while he focused his attention on a small spiderweb on the corner of the ceiling, which he’d have to remember to obliterate soon (for Annabeth’s sake, more than anything else - she hated spiders): Jason couldn’t find a reason to continue acting like a broken-hearted teenager. And if he realised that, it wouldn’t be long until one of his good friends used it against him. 

The more he thought about why he was so deprived of energy to get out of the darkness and muffled warmth of his new room, the more he understood that sadness was not the source of his misery. It was a matter of a wounded ego, cut into by the way Piper had ended their communication with a short collection of words in a phone screen. 

No one would deem him a big headed person, prideful or egotistical were not adjectives that were often associated with him. But deep down, he knew it was something he took time to repress and something he had as second nature in a corner of his brain. 

He came from a prideful family, both American and British sides of his coin guilty of being unable to let go of things that could make them look weaker. His sister Thalia had chosen to live in numerous foster homes when their mother died instead of taking their very rich father’s help. His stepmother refused to confront the same man on the ridiculous amount of affairs he had on his business trips (including Jason’s own mother) because she didn’t want to be seen as someone that was cheated on. And his dad... He had a big enough head to think everyone around him was so blind he got away with his stupidity. 

And he could feel the worry for humiliation crawling underneath his skin, the fear of being seen as a lesser person because he’d been broken up with via text message, a literal ocean between him and the sender and a figurative one pushing them even further apart. He needed to stop it before it consumed him because it was not like him to dwell on things like that.

So he finally gave in to the incessant buzzing and picked up his phone to find not a request, but an order to meet Leo at a Cafe. With a sigh, he silently reassured himself that it was exactly what he needed and he decided to oblige.

➿

“So if you think I’m not going to show up at Greek parties because Drew banned me from the girl’s House, you’re mistaken.” Leo’s glass cup resonated loudly with the metal garden table, which went unnoticed by the restive boy. “You don’t think she was serious, do you? Is this whole Pipes situation going to throw us both in the Undesirable list? Because unlike you, I can’t afford that!”

He poked his long index finger in the small space between their empty plates, as if trying to make his point come across as a lot more pressing than it was.

Leo had a flare for the dramatics. His loud humor and energetic demeanour could be a bit too much for a lot of people but it turned out to be the contrast someone like Jason could balance out easily. Leo talked, he listened. Most of the time, his answers got lost in the rapid train of thoughts that blurted out of his friend’s lips, too impatient to wait for a thought out reply. 

“That’s not a thing.” Jason assured him, but he was met with a vehement shake of the other’s brown curls, an argument ready on his tongue. Jason quickly continued. “It’s not! They don’t have a _list_.”

“They have a list. And I’m _numero uno_ in it, I mean... Have you looked at me?” Leo gestured to himself, frantically shaking his thin fingers.

He’d skipped a button of his light orange short sleeved shirt, the curve of the extra fabric letting his white T-shirt peek out at the collar. He was lean and at least ten centimetres shorter than Jason, something he made sure to point out as one of the greatest injustices of the world. His dark brown eyes glinted with a hint of mischievousness that, in the wrong setting, could make him look like a madman. If you looked hard enough you could find a hidden hint of machine oil or char somewhere in his tawny warm skin, usually under the loose curls that fell on his forehead. He wasn’t conventionally handsome, but Jason wouldn’t consider his friend unattractive.

The subtle roll of his eyes was enough for Leo to continue speaking.

“At least we have the Delta Nu Rushing party. And we _both_ need to get laid.” Leo’s conclusion made Jason slightly choke on his coffee. “What! We do.”

It amazed him how most of their problems could easily be solved by _getting laid_. Which was something Jason didn’t think he was capable of doing with just any stranger. 

“No! I’m not going.”

“Yes!” Leo smoothly took the cup out of Jason’s hands, knowing him well enough to know he’d hide himself behind a the ceramic instead of agreeing with him or acknowledging the conversation was not finished. Leo was a very convincing person and always got Jason to agree to whatever madness he had in mind. He just got overly restless the longer it took him to get there. “You’re going to have fun and you’re going to like it, Grace.”

Jason’s expression of coffee-deprived disappointment was washed away by an inquisitive eyebrow. “By... having sex?”

“Well, no! But!...” He paused, his eyes darting to the empty space behind Jason as if he were thinking of the words that would most easily convince him to say yes without much more discussion. “You’re a touchy drunk. I’m sure drunk you would appreciate the intimacy.”

Jason gave him a disbelieving chuckle and leaned over the table to retrieved his cup. “I’m not sure you know what that word means, Valdez.” But Leo’s smirk said what both of them already knew: he’d won the argument sooner than he’d expected. “But fine! I’ll go.”

Leo threw his fist halfway into the air in victory and Jason refrained from contesting his argument of him being a touchy drunk - because he was right. Percy had started calling his drunk persona _Sparky_ , saying that he looked for food and attention after he crossed the line of no return. Like a dog. It wasn’t his favourite analogy.

He agreed to help Leo shop for an outfit and ended up buying a couple of things himself, including some running gear as he thought about getting into again. He was told by his sister that he looked like one of those obnoxious people that exercised for fun and she was horrified when he took it as a compliment.

He liked the feeling of freedom it brought him. It got him in the right mindset to feel like all his problems had an easy solution, like it was him and the wind against the world. How could they lose? And since he had gone back to London, he didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts and he didn’t want to find out that this problem didn’t have an easy fix. 

He realised he didn’t think about Piper for most of the afternoon.

When he got back to his room he was happy to report to Percy that he was truly feeling better. It earned him a pat on the shoulder and it felt like the air between their shared four walls got instantly lighter.

The silence was no longer deafening. It was comfortable, like it used to be.

➿

It was lunchtime on Thursday when a text from Percy woke him up.

**< < Can you be a dear and do me a huge favor?**

Jason wondered how bad of a friend he would be if he ignored the notification on the screen and just went back to sleep.

**> > Where is the body?**

**< < Hilarious**.

It was. At least Jason chuckled to himself as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. 

**> > They moved my practice to 4. Can you bring my bag to the pool? Me and Annie can’t get back from babysitting in time for me to pick it up.**

He spotted the sports bag neatly set next to the bedroom door and yawned. Since the first time he had watched Percy’s swim practice he had decided the New Rome short course swimming pool was one of his favourite places on Campus. Maybe even in the country. He rarely declined invitations to follow his friend’s hobby, even though they both knew he wasn’t always watching him swim. 

He’d found it was peaceful to read with the muffled sounds of the water overpowering the random chatter. It paired well with the certainty that he wouldn’t be interrupted for the entirety of the two hours he sat on the blue plastic and worn out chairs of the audience stands. It helped him finish a lot of papers in his first year.

**> > Will do.**

**< < And bring shopping bags, we need to shop for The Party™.**

Jason smiled at his friend’s use of the trademark symbol. He had completely forgotten about the party and, even though he had come to terms with the event, he still tried to think of a good excuse not to go. He had none. 

He remembered his first Greek party and how he and Leo had made complete fools of themselves. He didn’t even know how Jason had made it into a pledge in Delta Nu when he couldn’t remember half of the party itself. He wondered what kind of things he’d see at the Rushing and if any of them would compare to the one metre tall traffic cone Leo had sitting in the corner of his room. They had Sparky to thank for that.

It wasn’t until he sat down in the heavily humid air of the Swimming Pavilion that he realised he had never been to a practice without any school work in hand before. He hadn’t brought any books except for the ones downloaded into his trusty phone, which he was suddenly very aware of in his back pocket. 

Percy waved at him before he pulled the goggles over his eyes and almost doubled in laughter as a response to something one of his teammates said. The sound echoed the walls of the Centre and brought a smile to Jason’s face. He decided to direct it to the small screen he’d wiggled out of his jeans, a digital copy of _Huckleberry Finn_ staring back at him. 

He didn’t know how many lazy yawns had passed before a shadow settled over his space. 

He followed the silhouette of the biker boots in his his field of view, his eyes trailing over the black washed out jeans that followed lean legs to a pair of hands safely tucked into its pockets, olive skinned arms framing an eggshell coloured t-shirt with the astronaut cover of _Indian Summer_ ’s ‘Science 1994’. Tense shoulders and an unimpressed face stared down at Jason and he smiled politely at the unexpected interaction with the man. Did he... want something?

After a few moments of uncomfortable staring, he decided to return his attention to be book, trying to shake the awkward silence that had settled.

“You’re in my seat.” 

Jason’s lips parted as his thumb locked his phone and the screen turned black. He briefly saw his confused look on the thumb printed glass before he looked back up at the boy, whose expression was as blank as it had been moments before. He thought about questioning the affirmation, which he knew was implying a request for him to move, but decided against it. With an acknowledging nod, more to himself than to the boy, he slowly slid to the next chair over.

The dark haired man still didn’t look satisfied. Or at least Jason didn’t think so, it was hard to tell with his never changing blankness. 

“Seriously.” He said bluntly, but Jason figured it was meant as a questions.

He wasn’t sure, but he answered anyway. “You ‘got your seat.”

“There’s hundreds of other chairs you could move to.” A hint of annoyance tugged at his eyebrows as his hand lightly moved out of his pocket to gesture around him.

“I could say the same.”

“I-...” He didn’t finish. Instead, the boy sat down in the now empty blue space where Jason had been moments before. 

He looked back to his e-book, an entertained smile snapping his lips after such a weird exchange. He wondered why he particular interest in that specific seat but he didn’t ask. Jason wasn’t one to start conflict for no reason and the man was right, there were plenty of other seats. And he even thought he could potentially move a couple of chairs, he had been there first. So he moved... enough to prove a point. 

He couldn’t concentrate on his reading with the sporadic shuffles of his t-shirt sleeve as the other’s shoulder grazed his. He could feel the boy’s dark eyes on him from time to time and he assumed he was not comfortable with it either. 

“I guess you weren’t expecting company.” Jason finally broke the silence, his eyes still fixed on the bright screen in his hands.

“No.” His response was blunt and loud, as if he’d been holding the word in his tongue for a while.

“‘Makes two of us, buddy.”

“I’m not your buddy.”

“Who are you, then?”

There was a pause. He figured the boy was pondering on being truthful or just spitting back another dry remark. “Nico.”

“Nico.” Jason repeated with a nod, clicking his thumb at the edge of the screen to turn a page. As if he’d been paying any attention to Huck and Jim. 

He’d been rereading the same sentence for the tenth time when he lift his eyes to find two black eyebrows raised at him with a question mark.

“What?” He asked. And, as Nico’s eyebrows pushed a little higher into his forehead, Jason realised what he was waiting for. “Oh. Jason. I’m Jason.”

“Okay.” 

That was the extent of their conversation.

They sat in silence for the remainder of the two hours Percy spent ripping through the water at extraordinary speed, the thought of how tiring it much be crossing Jason’s mind a few times. 

Nico left shortly after the team ran back into the locker room and didn’t address Jason again. For some reason, that amused him. If he were anything like his own sister, and he suspected that to be true, the tough facade existed to peak interest in the ones around him. But not enough interest that it generated social interactions. 

It worked. Jason was interested.

As he watched him jump over a couple of chairs, he wondered who the new face had come to accompany or if he had come with anyone at all. Wondered how many times he’d done it before and how many times Jason would run into him at Swim Team practices in the future. 

  
“Oh boy!” Percy cheered as he ran out into the fresh breeze of the street. His damp hair dangled wildly on his head. “That was my best time this year!” 

Jason congratulated him as they walked toward the supermarket where he was happy to push the trolley while his roommate ran around throwing things into the metal basket. 

He was a generally happy person but, after practice, Percy turned into an even bubblier version of himself. Like the water revitalised him to his maximum and he had the direct the new found energy somewhere or he’d explode. 

He let his friend talk and laughed at the funnier remarks he’d make, distractedly watching him internally struggle with two different types of Doritos and text pictures of the bags to the Frat group chat. 

They pushed the shopping kart all the way to the House, something Jason had once frowned upon but now didn’t comment on. He’d just make sure he’d return it instead of letting it turn into a makeshift dumpster like the previous two they’d openly stolen. They now sat outside their kitchen door with bin bags waiting to be disposed of. 

After leaving the shopping and receipts with Charles Beckendorf, the most senior member of the Delta Nu, they made their way back to their room and go ready for the party that would happening in their own living room.

Jason considered not changing at all and the fact that he’d have to stick his fingers in his eyes to apply his contact lenses played a great part on him wanting to stick to his lounge casual look. Percy correctly pointed out gym shirts and a T-shirt were not appropriate attire when they had an image to maintain with the prospect pledged, to which Jason laughed. He changed anyway. 

He chose a dark t-shirt he tucked into his jeans, the memory of his many beer stained clothes heavily judging the varsity jacket Percy was dangerously willing to wear in a sea of messy people. He waved him off before Jason could remind him of their last few parties and ran out the door midway through buckling his belt, the loud music making its way into the small room before the door closed. 

Shaking his head, he picked up his phone and followed him, making sure to lock the door behind him as it wouldn’t be the first time he found people abusing the rooms in the Chapter House during parties. 

The house was completely full in the first couple of hours. It was dark and sweaty and the amount of people putting drinks in Jason’s hand had no idea the state he was in after the first five. 

He realised he needed to slow down when the shots stopped burning in his throat and he laughed at absolutely nothing. The good thing? Leo was almost as badly under the influence as he was. It almost reminded him of the traffic cone but he pushed the sudden need for another piece of public property deep into his mind.

At one point in the night, Jason had someone’s baseball cap on his head, the visor hitting the top of his back anytime he threw his head back in laughter during the dragged game of beer pong Percy had started over the old mahogany table in the diner room they used as an official meeting space.

Leo’s ball bounced off the table and hits a vaguely familiar face passing behind them. Percy seems excited about this and lifts his arms up over his head as if their victim hadn’t already seen them. 

“Nico!” He yells and the dark haired boy from the pool walks over to drop the plastic ping pong ball in Percy’s hand with an obviously forced smile. “Hey Sparky, this is my cousin Nico!”

Jason laughed. He didn’t know what particular detail about the situation had made him give the loud guffaw but Nico didn’t seem pleased by it, or maybe it was the fact that his cousin had engulfed him into a loose headlock, not removing his arm from around his shoulders when he was done ruffling his shaggy onyx hair.

They didn’t seem to have anything in common physically, apart from the dark tuff of hair on their heads.

Percy’s skin was a warm shade of tan, his bring green eyes reflecting the yellow light of the chandelier above them like a beacon of happiness you couldn’t help but shamelessly stare at. He was tall, broad shoulders typical of a swimmer as defined as his facial features. 

Nico, on the other hand, sported dark features. His almost black eyes highly contrasted with his greyish olive skin. He was thin, shoulders slumped in a failed attempt to make himself look a little smaller. He was shorter than Percy, maybe few hairs taller than Leo. He was dressed in all black, his shirt a few sizes too big and sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Jason noticed a few rings glinting in his thin fingers along with a couple of chains on his belt, but couldn’t make out the shapes from across the table. He looked almost intimidating.

All this was made a lot more evident by the bright smile that seemed to have come with Nico to the party.

“Hi!” The blond boy with the surfer like curls waved both his hands as he stepped into the game area, shinning as many teeth as he could at everyone. “I’m Will Solace!”

“As in Mike and Lee _Solace_!?” The comment came from next to Percy and he had almost forgotten his friend’s beer pong teammate, Clarisse, was still with them. She usually lost interest fast when she was losing. And she was. 

The name seemed to have meaning for a few people around the table and conversations broke out when the man nodded happily at the question. _Great_ , Jason thought, _a Legacy_. 

“Ha! Okay, blondie, you’re with me!” Percy let go of Nico and gestured for Will to join his side of the table before starting to rearrange the cups for a new game. Clarisse seemed pleased by the turn of events. “Cous’, you’re with Hot Stuff and Jazzy Boy.”

Percy smirked at Leo and wiggled his eyebrows, knowing he’d just saved himself from a week of reminders he’d lost at pong. Again. “I see you!”

Leo followed suit in rearranging their own cups while Nico waved his hands and took a step back. “No, no, no.”

Percy visibly rolled his eyes and pointed a red cup at Jason’s side of the table. “Come one! Sparks will drink for you, if that’s the problem!”

He made it seem like Nico had a special respect for the fact that he shouldn’t be drinking and simultaneously reminding twenty year old Jason that he had a complete disregard for the law. Which was only half true.

Nico seemed to grunt, a sound Jason couldn’t hear over the loud music but that it was very easy to imagine, and dragged his feet to their side of the table. Leo flashed him a smile and Jason offered him a plastic ball that he reluctantly took.

He made the shot.

They kept playing for an undetermined chunk of time, people coming and going around them and Nico looking a little more comfortable with his position in the team. He cheered at successes and squinted as he downed his share of the cups. He looked a lot more approachable when he laughed and even stopped resisting when Leo and Jason spontaneously hugged him in celebration. 

After a few games, Nico willingly high-fived Leo and shied away from doing the same to Jason when he noticed him staring at the interaction. He didn’t take it personally. At least the guy was having fun.

The last cheer came from Percy’s side of the table, though, as Jason drank the last cup on their edge of the table and threw it back at Clarisse, who had been gloating about their progress since halfway through the game. The Solace kid was good and was now being congratulated by strangers as the crowd dispersed. 

Jason left Nico and Will involved in a heated discussion with Percy and let Leo drag him to the kitchen island to get more drinks and hopefully the fresh breeze that came in through the open backdoor.

It was a mistake. 

On the other side of the linoleum he recognised the mane of chocolate brown hair before he saw her face. Piper shot him a small smile and his finger froze on the beer can’s tab. He didn’t know what to do and the moment of deliberation seemed to last way too long before Leo pushed his shoulder to turn him around and away from her.

“Hey, man? Snap out of it.” 

Jason had managed to avoid her for almost a week and he had to see her while completely wasted and not at all in control of himself. 

“There’s tons of pretty girls in this joint, she’s just one that you don’t have to talk to.” Leo glanced over his shoulder to give his ex-girlfriend a wide smile and Jason didn’t know if it meant _Don’t mind him_ or _Bog off_. 

“Yeah.” He nodded and forced the can in his hand open before looking at Leo’s determined look. “Yeah! I’m cool!”

He wasn’t cool.

As if to make Leo’s point, another beautiful face joined their conversation, adorned with a look of extreme disappointment.

“Didn’t take you for the type that drinks to forget.” 

“Reyna.” Leo greeted dreamily, staring at the woman that squeezed between them to lean her back against the island counter.

Jason responded with a _Pft!_ and looked away from her, suddenly losing interest in the bitter drink. She laughed and took the can from his hands.

“She’s not worth the trouble, pretty boy.” 

She took a sip from the drink and he noticed Leo slowly removing himself from the conversation. He didn’t know if he liked that.

Reyna Ramirez-Arellano was one of the two friends who he knew from High School, the other one being Leo. They had spent an awful lot of time working together, sharing the class President mantle and being in charge of every single project no one else wanted to take. They were quite the unstoppable pair when they wanted to be. 

Even though they rarely talked, apart from business, Jason considered her a close and reliable friend. She wasn’t the kind of person that wasted a lot of her time being sappy and talking about her feelings, although he suspected she’d be open to listen if he wanted to talk. He didn’t.

He noticed he’d been quiet for a while, his thoughts slowed by the alcohol in his system making him take a little more time to process the information he was getting from his surroundings. Reyna was looking at him with special interest, her index finger circling the top of the can in her hand as her eyes studied his expression. She sported a fond smile, which he rarely got to see. Not directed at him, at least. 

Her defence mechanism involved not showing anyone directly how much she cared. Instead, she did things like going back for a first edition _Lord of the Rings_ you saw while thrift shopping one summer, and saving if for half a year to give it to you as a Christmas present. She threatened Bryce Lawrence and got him expelled for purposely breaking your first pair of glasses.

Or she took your drink away from you because she thought you’ve had too much. Making it look like anything but concern.

Jason finally nodded in agreement and distractedly watched her finger move on the golden metal of the beer can. She was silent for another long moment before she suddenly pushed her weight away from the marbled counter and set the can down. 

“Let’s dance.” She didn’t wait for an answer.

Reyna pulled him by the hand, squeezing between the warm bodies that filled their path to the crowded living room. She only looked back once, not to make sure Jason followed because his hand was securely wrapped by hers. He could almost swear she looked right through him, her smirk stretching her lips a little more before she pushed further into the sea of dancing people.

Jason twisted his neck to follow her gaze, curious to register who or what she had looked back at, and...

 _Oh_.

Piper’s expression was unreadable, unlike Drew Tanaka’s whose mouth was agape, an hint of a smile creeping at her eyes that matched the other four or five sets of perfectly coloured lips that surrounded her.

He didn’t let his eyes linger any longer, his friend’s intentions perfectly clear now that he had seen the Kappa Theta Phi girls react like a criminal offence had been committed right before their eyes. He knew he’d be on the Sorority’s bad side for a while instead of getting pity looks as he walked by. He wasn’t entirely sure that was an upgrade in his situation.

He could live with rumours, though. The truth was harder to face.

And there was Reyna again, quietly trying to make his life a little easier. Just like that, he didn’t have to worry about the gospel truth anymore. He didn’t have to worry about looking like an idiot who had been dumped over text.

She turned back to him, their chests nearly touching in the small space they now occupied in the midst of other intoxicated students. Jason’s back grazed numerous others as dancing people settled back into the open space Reyna had guided him through to get away from the loud linoleum floors. 

Someone had the brilliant idea of installing UV lights under the dado rail that circled the rooms of the ground floor of the house the purple hue reflected off his dance partner’s eyes like a beacon. He stared at them before leaning in, almost having to scream over the four-on-the-floor rhythm of the music.

“Thank you!”

“Don’t mention it.” Reyna leaned back to study his expression, settling on a nonchalant smile and leaning back in so that she could add something that would make her sound more casual over the transparency of her actions. “You know that everything I do is for my own benefit.”

Jason chuckled, giving her a disbelieving nod that did anything but agree with her. It was easier than talking and silent exchanges like these were usually their best for of communication. It said _Right, of course it is_ , with the light sarcasm they usually laced their words with. 

They didn’t talk again, their bodies already swaying to the repetitive beat on instinct. Jason could swear he could feel it in his chest, the resonance of the could making it seem like it was fuelling his own heartbeat. 

The alcohol buzz was returning, or at least he was more aware of it. The tingling numbness spreading from his fingertips and up his arms making him feel lighter and dissolving his surroundings, a blur of purple and neon colours flooding his eyes every time they opened. 

His cheek brushed the soft skin of his forearm as his head fell back in a soundless laugh, hands reaching up for a sky that was miles away as he got lost in something as simple as dancing. 

Jason’s mind was softly brought back into focus as he was gradually made aware of a few things.

He was naturally a very tactile person. He consciously avoided touching people on a daily basis but, like with any other person, alcohol blurred most of the boundaries he created as a rational man. Jason sought it a lot without his step mother’s whisper in the back of his mind telling him to behave. And he certainly didn’t shy away from it.

So, _naturally_ , he was pleasantly surprised to find Reyna’s hands tentatively going up the steps of his ribs, the curve of her body comfortably pressing against his chest. He liked the burning trail they left behind, lighting up his skin with a spark he never thought he’d associate with the woman in front of him. 

He watched her with interest, their eyes locked as she gently laced her fingers through his and guided his hands down to rest on the dip of her waist. 

She stepped closer, even though Jason didn’t think it was possible. Their hips moved in unison and he wasn’t sure they’d been doing that before, the hyper awareness of their bodies touching now the only thing on his mind.

Jason swallowed, his throat and mouth dry from realisation. He licked moisture into his lips and Reyna’s eyes tracked the movement, her tongue mirroring it, curling over the brim of her mouth. She seemed to realise she’d done it because her eyes shot back up almost instantly. 

He could feel her fingers trailing up his chest, dragging the sweat sticky fabric of his shirt as they rested on the back of his neck. He saw a flash of hesitation in her eyes before she placed some of her weight in that hand and used it to pull herself up. Or pull Jason down? The mechanics seemed a little fuzzy in his mind once he felt the sure pressure of her mouth on his.

She tasted bitter, like beer and something else he couldn’t pinpoint. It had an oddly pleasant kick to it, matching the environment and Jason’s own alcohol tainted tongue. 

He felt a small tug of disappointment pull at his stomach when Reyna’s warmth was replaced by the cold of the room but he didn’t have time to process it before it reappeared against his ear. 

“You live here now, right?” 

The question was full of intent and all Jason did was nod before she once again guided him through a crowd they wouldn’t see again that night.


	2. Nico (Week 1 - Lecture Nightmare)

” _But I know some day I'll make it out of here_  
 _Even if it takes all night or a hundred years.”_

_Billie Eilish -_

“Advanced Quantum Mechanics. Introduction to Symmetries. Particle _Detectors_?” 

Will seemed a lot more interested in Nico’s lectures than he was in his own lunch.

“Yes, thank you.” Nico pulled his notebook back to his side of the table, ticking the books on his syllabus he’d written down as **important** as he added them to his Amazon shopping cart. “I can read too.”

“I’m sorry, I knew about the internalised anger but I didn’t think you’d follow The Hulk’s footsteps quite so literally.” 

Will offered him a taunting smile as he mouthed a lot more fries in one go than anyone should. It earned him an emotionless glare.

“Oh, come on!” He continued, obviously unbothered by Nico’s demonstration of discontent. “It’s your first day, lighten up.”

Nico shook his head at his notebook, one hand blindly looking for the fork he had set on the corner of his plate before he got distracted by the ridiculous amount of money he’d have to spend on books. And he was only counting the ones he deemed important enough to own instead of borrowing from the Library, thinking he couldn’t afford to rely completely on the youth’s unwillingness to study.

He didn’t think his father would even blink at the number he saw after the little figure of the shopping cart on the top right corner of his screen, happily swiping his choice of credit card whenever Nico asked. But it still pained him to spend so much money when he was already paying to be taught these things and forced to attend tedious lectures to go home and read about the theory by himself. If all he had to do was _read_ ,he could’ve stayed back home instead of moving cross country to study in a college that better catered to his future plans.

Also one that his cousin conveniently attended.

“I’m as light as you’ll see me.” He locked his phone and threw it on the open messenger’s bag next to his chair, giving up on his quest for educational literature.

“I have to disagree, you were pretty happy at the Delta party.” 

Will seemed very casual about it but it didn’t stop Nico from frowning. 

His roommate and best friend knew more about him than anyone, mostly because he asked too many questions. And answered were the best way to shut him up.

No one had ever tried to know as much about Nico as Will had accomplished, and even so, the blond had only grazed the surface of the pool of nightmares he had swimming in his head.

But it wasn’t all bad. Some of the things Will felt more comfortable teasing him about were facts he was more open about. But this was still a touchy subject for him.

“I wasn’t _happy_. I was just-...”

“Having fun? Enjoying yourself?” Will interrupted him and he knew, if he let him continue, he’d find every possible synonym he could to express the sentiment.

“Fine!” Nico placed his cutlery on the plate, rolling his eyes at his friend. “It was fun. That’s _it_.”

He said it as a warning but Will objectively chose to ignore it, smiling like he’d just won the lottery.

“Was it because of Peeeercy?” He dragged the first vowel and it sounded like nails on a chalkboard to Nico.

Percy Jackson was the one thing he regretted telling his best friend about. 

They weren’t actually biologically related. Nico’s father had remarried after his mom had passed away, and Percy was his new wife’s nephew. Not related to Nico. Not _at all_. 

He had met him for the first time at the wedding. Nico was fourteen years old and, for a while, he thought his new seventeen year old cousin was the most beautiful sight he had seen in his life. 

It was like a scene from a sappy Rom-Com, slow motion and violins included. And he replayed it in his head until exactly a week ago, when the memory had been replaced by an upgraded version of what he had witnessed at the wedding.

He had been peacefully sitting at a bench, hiding from the sun and from his dad’s forced attempts to get him to socialise with his new acquired family. He could see the bright green gardens sprinkled with colourful dresses and loud conversations. 

The other kids were playing, running around or entertained by a friendly game of football. He’d refused to join, his thin arms and light complexion screaming at the thought of the physical activity. No one had caught his eye by then, he just watched the sudden movements, distractedly waiting for time to pass so he could retreat back home and resume his not very exciting life.

But then the loud _splash_ caught his attention. The flattened ball had been thrown a little too far and some idiot had fallen into the pool trying to catch it.

That idiot had been Nico’s sexual awakening. 

He remembered Percy emerging from the water at inhumanly slow speed (or maybe it had been Nico’s imagination), hands steadily pressed against the rocky side of the pool as he flashed a blinding smile at... someone, he didn’t pay attention to who. His tan skin glittered, tickled by the water droplets that followed the laws of gravity and traced the line of his cheekbones. His white dress shirt stuck to his pectorals, contrasting with the reflection of the sun in bright green eyes, lightened up with amusement. 

The scene sped up, at least in Nico’s mind, when Sally Jackson ran to her son to either make sure he was okay or yell at him for being ridiculously clumsy. He never found out which option played out because he was too busy watching his new cousin pull the wet fabric of his shirt over his head to rid it of most of the water, leaving his naked shoulders reflecting the warm sunlight.

As Percy shook the water out of his hair, Nico noticed the new, growing feeling at the bottom of his stomach that accompanied the sound of his heart beating in his ears. A feeling that emotionally and physically grounded him to that bench for the rest of the afternoon. And that was when he knew that he hadn’t and would never get that sort of feeling towards a girl. 

It had been quite the revelation. Unexpected but, at the same time, there had been something building up in the back of his mind that got violently pushed into light.

What he didn’t know was that the same, crippling tug at his bellybutton would follow him into New Rome University. Or maybe he did and he insisted on continuing to lie to himself and pretend his choice had been entirely based on academic prowess and not on the fact that he was hung up on a feeling that had given a lost teenager some sense of who he was.

“Will.” Nico pointed his index finger at his lunch date in warning, triggering several attempts at concealing laughter, the throaty chuckles a clear indication that those attempts were in vain.

“Okay, okay!” He lift his hands in surrender, choking back a laugh. “I’ll stop. But you should probably consider broadening your horizons. Maybe date a guy. Any guy. Not everyone in this fine institution is related to you, ya’ know?”

Will got up mid sentence as he got hit in the forehead by a wrapped up napkin, trying to outrun the smug smile on his face as Nico looked around the table for alternative ammunition.

“See you at dinner, loser!” Will yelled across the patio, circling around the other student filled tables before Nico could offer any commentary on his behaviour. 

➿

It felt like months had passed since the beginning of his week but, when Nico looked at his phone calendar to mark down in bright red the date of a new deadline, he was thoroughly disappointed to find out was only Thursday. 

He was tired. And he’d voice these feelings more often if it hadn’t become a constant for him. He didn’t like the wrinkle that formed right between Will’s eyebrows anytime it looked like Nico had less than eight hours of sleep. And that was also a big constant for him. 

He had an infinite amount of work planned already and his roommate couldn’t wrap his head around that concept when his professors were all, as he’d put it, _so chill_.

Will kept babbling about how he had such a great time in his _Anatomy I_ lecture and how his professor had pointed out several ways to disable the human body by hitting specific spots with expert precision. Apparently he was trying to demonstrate how humans were weak and why it was important for future healthcare professionals to expect no cooperation from their biology.

Nico was experiencing the other side of the figurative coin that was College. He had been hit with cold, hard truths only and not in any unorthodox-and-possibly-criminally-exciting kind of way.

But Will talking about Anatomy was the exact cue he needed to casually bring up his most recent project, which he had been pushed into by one of his professors.

He was harassed by his _Introduction to Biomechanics_ teacher, who he was now referring to as Mr. Douche, after he mentioned a study by a couple of Greek dudes that went against some ridiculous point the man was trying to make about motor control systems that emulated muscle function. They argued, Nico got a few pats in the back for distracting the old guy and also got a proposition to prove him wrong. How could he say no?

It was a very generous offer to reenact the results of the study he mentioned by the end of the semester. And a challenge to do it better. But he’d need someone with an Anatomy background to help him.

He didn’t know how to bring it up to Will, mostly because he knew he’d think this had been his brilliant idea and what it implied for him and his history.

“ _Realistic Biomechanical Simulation and Control of Human Swimming_...?” Will dragged his words as he repeated the title on the printed out copy of the paper, raising an eyebrow at Nico like he was expecting an explanation.

“Yes. You can use it for your _Anatomy I_ and I...” Nico had started the thought without knowing where it was going. _And I have an excuse to go to every single swim practice without looking like a creep_ , is what he wanted to say. But he cut himself off before too much of the truth came out. “And I can get a good thing out of this elective.”

Will’s eyes skimmed through the few pages of research, looking over the fresh print a few times to make sure he was stepping on solid ground as they made their way out of the Science building. Nico noticed the soft shaking of his head, like he knew exactly what his best friend was thinking and he didn’t like it.

“You can’t say yes to every single interesting project people throw at you.” 

Maybe he didn’t know what he was thinking.

Nico groaned and pulled the paper from his hands. “I told you, I didn’t want to do this!”

“Tell me you’re just going to watch a couple of YouTube videos and call it a day.” Will’s expression had softened. He was concerned for his wellbeing, as usual. It annoyed him a little bit, in the nicest way, that his friend had to parent him so much due to his disregard for his own health.

“I could...” Nico made his voice smaller, avoiding a most likely disappointed look by taking his sweet time to carefully place the paper between a couple of the books in his bag.

His friend pondered in silence as they walked under the orange hue of the sky, the warm colours dancing over an shadow of buildings as the sun got replaced by darkness. It was Nico’s favourite part of the day and he didn’t remember enjoying it since he’d set foot in New Rome. He certainly wasn’t enjoying it now.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake...” Will stopped walking, realisation hitting him and he knew what the theatricality of his reaction meant. 

He played this card a lot, forcing Nico to look stop too and look back at him, removing all the possible distractions from the equation. And he did look at him, sighing as he focused his eyes on a distant point in the horizon just as quickly as he had looked back at his friend.

“I thought you were _trying_ to steer away from this, not like-... Drive straight into a head on collision, or something!” 

Will had both his hands on his hips and reminded him so much of his late sister he had trouble staying quiet. But he didn’t respond to the obvious provocation and just waited for whatever else the other had to say. Because he was sure there was a lot.

“I knew there would be something.”

Nico almost got whiplash from how fast his neck turned to face Will. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you’re too deep into this crush thing and I’m-...” His friend paused and Nico was already preparing an argument to defend his case, which he assumed Will knew this because he was quick to continue. “You’re letting it consume you.” 

Silence.

Will Solace was one of the smartest people he knew. He had this emotional intelligence that Nico found extremely impressive and he sometimes forgot it was there. Until it hit him in the face as hard as a closed fist physically would.

He was right, of course. It was a comfortable feeling, the one he had when he thought of Percy. Sometimes he thought he didn’t let himself get over it because he had needed something to hold on to back then and he held on to this image of a person he saw a couple of times a year, at most. And it still worked for him.

Percy had turned out to be a really nice guy. He tried to talk to Nico, offering a lot more than the handful of words most people did. He made an effortless attempt to include Nico in family gatherings instead of letting him fade from existence in his little corner of the sofa. 

Nico hated that that was all it took. 

A lot had changed after his mother and older sister died. He had closed himself off from the world, his once outgoing personality now reserved for only a handful of people who somehow got him to open up with time. And parties.

He never had a good relationship with his father and it only got worse when both of them needed someone to blame for the situation they were forcefully put in. It was a dark couple of years where he tried to tone himself down as if he could, at some point, just disappear. 

And then his father’s very young girlfriend joined the household and his general mood just got so bad he seriously considered putting an end to it. Until Percy gave him a little bit of hope that he could turn it around.

He held on to that first moment of possibility like grim death, when he thought he was capable of feeling something other than the familiar emptiness in his chest.

Nico swallowed, think about what to say. _I know_ , or _You’re right_ , but after being quiet for so long, just staring at each other, it felt like the opportunity had passed. Will seemed to agree, putting an end to the conversation.

“I’ll do it. Just... Be careful.” He resumed his casual pace and clapped Nico on the shoulder as he passed him, shooting him a sympathetic smile that he usually wore when addressing strangers he helped on the street or acquaintances he found at the supermarket.

Nico’s stomach complained, as if the gesture had physically assaulted him, and his legs didn’t obey him when he wanted to follow Will down the street. Because he didn’t really want to bother him with his presence anymore. 

He felt like that’s all he’d done.

And that seemed to be the mutual, silent understanding between them, because Will just lift his hand in a wave, not looking back. “Let me know you’re alive if you come back late.”

He knew him well enough to know Nico would run from the momentary awkwardness that the warning had left between them. He knew Nico would talk to him when he wanted to, that he’d eventually try to explain himself even though Will made sure to let him know he didn’t have to. 

That was why Nico could say, with the utmost certainty, that he loved this boy like family. Maybe more than his own family, sometimes.

  
He wandered around the campus for a while, walking slowly, trying to give his mind time to think of where he wanted to go. No. He was trying to give himself to change his mind, because he already knew where his steps were taking him. And, at some point during his walk, he just let it happen.

The bright lights of the pavilion made him squint as he walked in, the warm breath of the chlorine scented air hitting his skin and sending a shiver down his spine. He adjusted quickly.

Nico took his time walking through the excessively blue row of plastic chairs, his eyes shifting from his path to the clear water of the short course swimming pool. He did his best not to search too intently for the one swimmer he knew. 

He was hoping to have a couple of hours for himself, the muffled sounds of the water drowning his thoughts until he felt safe from them. So he groaned disappointedly when he saw someone sitting right next to his best calculated seat.

Now, Nico wasn’t the type of person to get worked up over a chair in the audience of a college swimming pool. And he had a perfect explanation as to why he wanted to sit in that specific bit of plastic where he could be lined up with Percy Jackson’s preferred pool lane. And he was ready to give it, but it probably wouldn’t make a difference. Especially because his company for the remainder of the practice was not listening.

The man sat slumped in the same chair Nico had left him the last time he had decided to watch the Swim Team. The chair he had used to make a point when asked to move. Was this what that was? Or was it just coincidence. Nico silently wondered, taking every detail of the blonde’s bright purple hoodie. 

He had his mouth slightly open as his relaxed muscles didn’t have the motivation to hold his jaw in place. His head was uncomfortably resting against the thin back of the chair, the hood of his top falling halfway down the top of his head. It dragged the longer sandy hairs with it and left them in complete disarray, adding the perfect touch to the _hangover_ vibe he had going. The man’s glasses were still in it’s designated position, maybe a little closer to the tip of his nose than they should have been. He had a book resting on his chest, the pages pressing against the cotton of his hoodie, and Nico turned his head in a weird angle to read the half hidden title: _Invisible Cities_.

With a surprised hum, Nico sat down, careful not to rock his sleeping acquaintance into consciousness. And just when he thought he had succeeded, a startled gasp sounded next to him along with a very sudden shoulder jerk that he instinctively moved away from.

“Little Jackson!”

“Sparky.” Nico greeted in monotone, frowning at the choice of nickname and keeping his eyes on the water in front of him. 

Jason looked around him as he sat up, probably making sure no one else had seen him fast asleep in the stands. Nico didn’t think he had any reason to feel embarrassed. He thought the man looked a lot more approachable , less intimidating without that permanent worry wrinkle between his eyebrows. He’d seen him in two different occasions and he’d thought he was a little big of a jerk in both of them. There was a softness to him that disappeared when his body was aware of itself, no beer pong or smug smiles. Asleep, he looked like someone whose company Nico might enjoy. 

“Also, _Little Jackson_? Not a thing.” Nico added, looking at the purple blur adjusting itself to the seat next to him. “It’s Di Angelo.”

Jason chuckled, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his index finger. “Fair. That’s fair.” The glasses helped with the approachable thing too, Nico concluded. 

He didn’t particularly want to make conversation with his cousin’s Fraternity brother, especially because hadn’t decided if he liked him or not, but he didn’t want to be rude either. He had, however, decided that he’d leave the responsibility of continuing and maintaining a conversation to Jason.

“So...” He seemed to be threading carefully, and Nico figured it wasn’t out of curtesy. It was self preservation. He didn’t want to give too much of his mind away. “I meant to ask you last time. What are you doing here?” 

It seemed like they were talking, then. And about Nico, nonetheless. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t look like the type of guy who... just _hangs out_ in a pool.” Jason dragged his words, once again giving Nico the impression that he was calculating the direction of the conversation to steer it in his favor. 

“You don’t look like the type of guy who owns early editions of Italo Calvino.” Nico offered, glancing down at the book in the other’s lap. He tilted his head, a slight pull at his eyebrow as he confident he’d made his point as well as Jason had made his by sitting in the vicinity of Nico’s preferred spot.

They stared at each other for a moments. He could almost see the gears working behind his electric blue irises and it was starting to feel uncomfortable. Thankfully, Jason nodded and turned his head away from him, following Percy’s stroke in the water. 

“That’s...” He paused, giving Nico a second to take a hopefully unnoticed deep breath. “Yeah. Okay.” 

Nico didn’t think telling this very blond man that he had come to watch his cousin swim because it made him feel at home with himself was a good option. He knew he wouldn’t be pressed for an answer after their exchange but he could almost feel more questions coming. So he went with the choice of topic and gave him a lesser, still true, answer.

“I’m working on an applied project for a lecture on the biomechanics of swimming.” He nodded as if reassuring himself that what he was saying was absolute. “My professor kind of pushed me into doing it.”

“Right.” It didn’t sound _right_. “You were working on it last week?” Jason asked, knowing very well he hadn’t had any lectures before the first practice they’d met at, a half smile pushing his cheeks closer to the rim of his glasses. “That’s very dedicated for a freshman.”

Nico watched him for a few seconds too long before he turned his attention elsewhere. He decided he wasn’t going to grace him with an answer. Asshole.

“Relax. I’m only joking.” 

He could hear the amusement in his voice and he hated it. He hated observant people who remembered things and didn’t accept half truths. He hated people who cared enough about the world to analyse other people’s words, more specifically his. He hated that the only reason he hated those people was because they were the kind of people he was afraid to talk to on the off chance he’d just never shut up once he started. Like it had happened with Will.

He hadn’t even noticed _Sparky_ had the most obnoxious british accent he’d ever heard until he subconsciously decided he had to dislike him a little bit for figuring him out so easily. And now, all he could hear was the exaggerated roll of his consonants. _I’m only joking_ , he mockingly replayed in his head. 

He didn’t find it funny. 

“Why are you here?” Nico fired back.

Jason didn’t seem at all bothered by the question, shrugging and slumping forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “I was bored at the House.”

That was a much simple answer than the one Nico had given. He figured The House was the large mansion the fraternity had built their base on, where his cousin had been sharing a room with someone since the beginning of his sophomore year. Was that Jason? He hadn’t been interested enough to ask before.

“Yes, falling asleep in a plastic chair sounds a lot more fulfilling than sleeping in your own bed.” Monotone. Again. 

Nico sat back in the chair to avoid eye contact with the other man, but Jason shot him a smile over his shoulder, his face pressing against the fabric over his shoulder and pushing his cheek against his glasses. They tilted a little, but the slight imperfection didn’t steal away from how ridiculously good he looked with his freckles and sleep weighting on his eyelids.

He decided he hated him a little bit more for that.

He could see why they’d had such a big audience at their beer pong game, now. Nico hadn’t paid it much mind before, but Will had pointed out that there were a lot of girls around the old mahogany dinner table, curiously watching an ordinary game of beer pong. And they both agreed it was unlikely they did it for the sport. The table was, after all, surrounded by good looking people. And young adults were a little superficial like that. Emphasis on _little_. 

“Touché.” Jason whispered, directing his upturn lips back to the pool.

He didn’t push for more small talk and Nico certainly didn’t make an effort to keep the conversation going either. They sat in silence, Jason resuming his readings and Nico just trying to keep his mind clear of warnings and hard truths.

He didn’t pay much attention to the practice.

➿

He heard the muffled laughter over his shoulder as the screen of his phone went black. He’d been staring at it for too long. 

“This is amazing.” Will let out a single laugh and tried to make his face fall into a more serious expression when Nico turned his attention to him. He failed.

His roommate let himself fall back into his bed, choking in his own laughter, obviously amused by the text Nico had gotten exactly thirty four minutes ago.

It had been a couple of days since his encounter with Jason Grace at the pool. It was Saturday and he he’d had time to listen to Will’s two cents on the guy. He’d been selected as a pledge, which didn’t surprise either of them since he’d made friends with almost everyone and their mothers at the Frat party they had attended in the first week. Not to mention both his brothers had been members of Delta and that made anyone of the Solace family someone they wanted on their Wall of Fame. 

Will had his first meeting as a pledge and was told he was on _probatio_ , which meant he had to prove to a bunch of people he didn’t care about that they’d made the right choice by inviting him to join a Greek association that went by mostly Roman rules. In the next six weeks, Will was a slave of the primitive social structure college students went by, and he couldn’t be happier.

“That’s an overreaction if I’ve ever seen one, Solace.” Nico spun his wheelie chair to face the beds, where Will was lying motionless, the only thing moving was his chest, rising in huffs if quiet laughter. “It’s just a text.”

Will had talked about his meeting with the full time members of the Fraternity. He had pointed out the few people that had peeked his interest, physically and otherwise. Nico pretended not to listen, for the most part, but couldn’t keep to himself when his roommate mentioned that he thought Jason Grace was a _real nice guy._ He called him arrogant and that was enough for Will to grab onto that comment for dear life. 

All he heard about for twenty four hours was Jason.

The more he thought about him, the more he tried not to and having new questions pop up every ten minutes was not helping his goal. He’d told Will how he had gotten a little annoyed by the guy’s perceptive eye and that was his first mistake. Now his best friend was making his life sound like the beginning of a badly produced romantic comedy starring that generic guy from all the coming of age Netflix originals. It was another thing that he either found endearing or annoying about Will, depending where he directed it: he always let his imagination roam a lot wilder than he should, going way overboard with his _finding the bright side of things_ trait.

Will sat up slowly, his blond tousled waves magically bouncing back into their designated place as he faced him with a seemingly knowing smile. “Just a text. Inviting you to dinner.”

“Yes.” Nico agreed, giving him a shrug. “With other people.”

His friend shook his head and reached forward to snatch the phone from Nico’s lap. He realised his second biggest mistake was updating Will whenever he changed his password.

“ _Hey, Little Jackson_. Cute.” The blond nodded to himself as he read the most recent message on the screen, agreeing with his own statement.

“It’s the _worst_.” Nico disagreed, but Will decided to ignore him.

“ _I hope you don’t mind I got your number from Percy but I couldn’t find you on social media._ We seriously need to get you something.” Nico shook his head at this. He didn’t need social media people could easily find him on. Will continued. “ _He warned me you’re so hard to convince he’s given up on inviting you, but I’m ready for a challenge._ ”

At this, Will just stopped and smiled at Nico, his eyes piercing into him like blades. Like he was trying to inject him with his fantastic Hollywood narrative.

“Stop!” Nico finally demanded, to which his friend just chuckled.

“But he’s adorable!” This earned Will another signature eye roll. It didn’t stop Will’s dramatic reading. “ _We’re having a barbecue-slash-game-night at Leo’s this afternoon. You should come kick Big Jackson’s arse at Pictionary. Sparky._ See? Real nice guy. I like him.”

Of course he liked him, they were both cut from the same mold of emotional and socially inclined people who found the most unexpected breaches on Nico’s carefully constructed walls. 

“I’m going out on a limb here and say that constipated look on your face is because you’re considering saying yes without making the boy beg.” 

“No. I’m not.” Nico crossed his arms over his chest, staring at the phone in Will’s hand. The last thing he wanted was to spend his Saturday evening surrounded by a bunch of people he didn’t know and had not idea how to talk to. 

“Well, you go and prove your _obviously_ awesome cousin wrong.” Will threw his phone back at him and Nico almost didn’t catch it, stunned by the sarcastic note on his friend’s advice.

“What if he thinks I’m just turning _him_ down?” Nico was a little concerned Percy would think he’s only declining his invitations to lunches, dinners and coffees. There had been a few since he arrived in town. “He’ll think I’m avoiding him.”

“You kind of are?” He posed it as a question, but both him and Will knew _he kind of was_. 

“I guess I am.” He admitted, leaning back on the gaming chair Will had brought from home for their little dorm room. “But why is _he_ inviting me?”

His friend shrugged, his eyes wandering the room as if he were physically looking for an explanation. Nico was sure he had plenty and he just didn’t know which one would sit better with his goal of making Nico go to this dinner.

“Maybe he liked you?” Will offered, but the doubt in his voice was palpable.

Nico laughed once, shaking his head in denial. “Sure.”

“Hard as it may be to believe, _Nicholas_ ” Nico was ready to complain that was not his name, but his mouth just hung open. Will was well aware of that and only used that name when he was trying to make a point. “people actually are interested in your moody ass until you shut them down.”

Nico continued shaking his head. He didn’t believe that for a second, and he knew that was part of the problem. But in this specific case, he found it even harder to believe one of his cousin’s friends had found him friendly enough to invite him to a dinner party. 

“You’re overthinking this.” His friend dragged himself to the end of the bed to be as physically close to Nico as he could without getting out of the comfort of his mattress. “Just say yes.”

“I won’t know anyone apart from Percy. Doesn’t that defeat the point?”

“You’ll know Sparky.” He said, matter of factly, as he looked at him expectant for a decision. He was obviously enjoying the nickname thing a lot.

Nico stared back at him for a while, thinking about the pros and cons of actually going to a gathering with a bunch of people he didn’t want to talk to. He knew Percy and he’d met his girlfriend before, but he had never held a conversation with her without his cousin around. She seemed okay. But was she willing to pretend she was comfortable witch Nico’s zero effort to maintain conversation? 

And then there was _him_. This guy who for some reason had gone over his friends’ advice not to invite an outcast to a party and did it anyway. A guy who was comfortable with the bickering and the single tone answers Nico had always ready on the tip of his tongue. The likelihood of it being a big prank itched under his skin and it made him anxious. It was hard for him to believe someone was trying to be nice just out of the kindness of their heart. 

Human beings were generally rotten. With a few exceptions.

With an exasperated sigh, Nico picked up his phone to start typing a reply. His thumbs hovered over the screen for a few seconds as he decided how to play his availability.

**> > Sure. Should I bring anything?**

Will leaned forward to try and spy what he’d written, giving him a nod of approval when he realised Nico was accepting the invite instead of refusing to go. His phone buzzed less than a minute after.

**< < Just you. I’ll text you the address and the time once the host makes up his mind :)**

His eyebrows made a deep V in his forehead as he looked at the phone. His roommate took it as an invitation to read it for himself and leaned on the footboard of his bed to be able to see the lit up screen of Nico’s phone. He chuckled, the casual sound growing into more heartfelt laughter after a few moments of staring at Nico’s puzzled expression.

He expected a lot of forms of discourse from Jason Grace, but... _An emoji_?

Huh. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slice of Life it harder than I thought. 
> 
> Have fun picturing Jason with a british accent because I sure do xoxo
> 
> [The Crew Being Dummies Online](https://twitter.com/boredregard/status/1302384464589447168?s=21)


	3. Jason (Week 2 - E pur si muove)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And yet, it moves.” As said Galileo Galilei, and he was very right. Slowly, but I think we’re getting somewhere with these boys.

_“I just wanna tell you something, lately you’ve been on my mind._   
_Would you believe it?”_

_\- Harry Styles_

He’d spent half of Saturday morning in a very casual discussion with Percy about his cousin.

They sat in their respective beds, laptops open and a lazy feeling in the air. Jason has gone out with Leo on Friday night and crashed at his place to give his favourite couple a little bit of privacy but he’d purposefully left his studying material back at the room so that he would force himself to get up in the morning instead of slipping into a hangover induced coma.

He sat in his bed perpendicularly to the wall, a mountain of pillows arranged between his back and the cold plaster. Even though he had tried to pay attention to his first essays, Percy kept pulling him out of his mind space.

“He’s a good kid, ya’ know?” He didn’t know why he felt the need to explain Nico Di Angelo to him, but Jason still listened. “Don’t take it personally if he’s a little cold and distant, he’s had a shit life.”

Jason nodded and hummed along. Percy had seemed protective of his younger relative since he had mentioned him the first time. He remembered him saying they didn’t have the best relationship because his cousin was somewhat a difficult person to talk to. Or better yet, a difficult person to get some words out of. But Percy kept trying.

He was relieved he was talking to some people, even more so that one of those people was Jason, and he was really trying to sell his cousin in the best way he knew how, which proved to be talking about him to exhaustion. 

“I swear he’s probably great.” Jason huffed at Percy’s words, eyes focused on the screen of his laptop. “I mean, I say _probably_ because he doesn’t actually talk to me. I think he doesn’t like me very much.”

“Percy.” Jason tried to interrupt, to no avail.

“He’s quiet but apparently he’s very smart. Well, not apparently, I know he’s very smart.” Percy had completely given up on his school work. “He’s a little weird but aren’t we all?”

“Perce!” Jason lowered the screen and looked at his roommate, who looked a little startled with the change in voice volume. “I have absolutely no problem with your cousin.” 

He didn’t. He’d been thinking about all three of his encounters with Nico Di Angelo and how all of them had such different tones to them that it seemed like he’d met three different people. And he’d been intrigued by all of them. 

“I actually quite like him.” Jason added.

Percy’s shoulders seemed to relax a little as he leaned back against his headboard. “Oh. Yeah... Okay, good.”

“Why don’t you invite him to Leo’s Game Night thing?” 

“I told you! He doesn’t like me one bit. He just keeps saying _no_ to everything.” Percy spoke in a defeated tone, his eyes trailing over from his screen to Jason to give him a shrug.

He didn’t argue. Jason had a feeling that wasn’t entirely true but it wasn’t his place to comment on the matter. Nico obviously had some interest in Percy. Maybe he didn’t know how to mend their relationship either and they were both trying, very poorly, to do so. Jason wasn’t interested for the sake of gossip, but he was curious to know more about his friends. And maybe he’d like Nico to fit into that category. 

He looked like someone who was comfortable spending time with people in silence. He liked people like that. People he could bond over shared peace. That’s how Annabeth and him had become such good friends, so quickly. And Reyna.

He took a deep breath to hide the groan forming in his throat as he thought about the persistent headache he had whenever he thought about Reyna. He forced his mind back into the previous line of thoughts.

“I’m going to invite him.” Jason decided, reaching for the phone that was safely charging their nightstand. 

“He’ll turn you down. He’s not into parties. Or strangers. You’re offering both, Jason.”

He shrugged and started typing the invite while he talked. “Just because he says _no_ it doesn’t mean you should stop asking, though.”

Percy watched him with an unreadable expression that Jason decided to ignore, although he and Plato’s _Euthyphro_ appreciated the silence that came with it. Whatever had his roommate lost in thought gave him time to finish the paragraph he’d read at least ten times.

He wasn’t asked for an update on Nico’s answer.

➿

Leo’s house was falling apart. He’d moved into it in their first year of University and had somehow convinced Reyna into taking the second bedroom in the ground floor. 

He had explained to Jason that the garage and the basement spaces had seduced him (and those had been his exact words) into renting the place, which he had quickly filled with unfinished projects and loose tools.

The flush in the downstairs toilet had to be pressed a certain way or it would run for a few hours. One of the cabinets in the kitchen no longer had a door. The sliding door that led to the garden space was permanently locked since the first drop of rain - or permanently open - because the frame swelled with the humidity. So blankets were a great gift for the household.

The living room and dining room were supposed to be a combined space but both his friends had decided to give up on the dinner table and just make a spacious living room. And the amount of people they hosted testified to the brilliance of that idea. 

The back garden was not so bad, either. They had all pitched in to build a palette bench that sat a lot of people, along with a palette sized coffee table they usually used to violently throw their plus fours on when they played UNO. 

The had become their venue of choice. Even though everyone had their own place, the _Argo II_ , as Leo had named it, was a home.

Jason was the first to arrive. He promised Leo he’d help him clean up while everyone else took their time to show up as fashionably late as possible.

While he picked up lose rubbish in the living room, he could hear what seemed to be a very heated spanish discussion going on in the background. He didn’t know what it was about and he never asked. They usually made sure to involve him if they wanted to.

He’d gotten used to Leo and Reyna’s side conversations soon after he’d met them. He would be lying if he said it didn’t bother him at first, but he accepted Spanish was one of the things they, as a Mexican-American and a Puerto Rican, shared. His fourteen year old self didn’t feel comfortable with that, but he was put in his place as Jason grew up. Because being uncomfortable with other people’s cultures was something he had been taught, although it quickly became something he determinedly tried to unlearn.

They set a few bowls of snacks in the living room and moved the pre-party to the kitchen where he was tasked with making sure the meat was well mixed with the seasoning. He was forearms deep into the bowl when the doorbell rang and Leo glided out of the room to go open the door.

“I’m assuming you didn’t tell Leo.” 

Reyna whispered against the counter next to him, setting the tools she needed for the barbecue on a metal platter. She was usually in charge of the cooking, mostly because she got severely annoyed at how everyone else handled the grill. No one argued with that because no one enjoyed standing with a pair of tongs in one hand and a half drunk beer in the other for the good part of an hour.

She watched him with knowing eyes and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what she was referring to. Jason sighed at the thought and turned the meat in his bowl.

“I didn’t.” He admitted.

She hummed, nodding. They hadn’t talked since the Rush Party. Jason had avoided thinking about it, too. He didn’t want things to be awkward and every time his mind started reprocessing that night’s information he didn’t see he could possibly ignore that he’d slept with one of his best friends. That thought had always led to the question _What if it were Leo instead?_ to which he shuddered, pushing the subject away completely.

He woke up in the next morning with an overwhelming sense of regret. Not because he didn’t enjoy it but because of the possibility of how awkward it could make everything for them. For their little friend group, who liked to pick on everything and make it a running gag. Like when they found out the scar on his lips was from trying to eat a stapler when he was two years old. Or when they called him _Brick Master_ because he blacked out drunk after Clarisse tried to get him to catch a brick from the second floor of her apartment complex and it had just fallen on his head instead. It was a great night spent in a chair at the Emergency Room.

He wasn’t ready to have people talk about what he thought was his complete lack of self control. And he was just silently hoping Reyna thought the same, which he doubted. She was way too confident in her actions to let that affect her. 

“Well, pretty boy...” She leaned closer to him, her shoulder pressing against his as she lowered her voice. “He knows.”

Jason met her eyes with a slightly panicked expression that was apparently hilarious because all she did was give him one good laugh, tousling his hair and sliding the tray over the marble counter to use her hip as support and carry it one handed.

He was right. She didn’t seem too bothered by the fact that Leo would probably never let this go. In fact, she seemed like she was going to enjoy watching them bicker about it.

He was motionless, watching her step out into the garden with her precious collection of sharp kitchen utensils, when his ears registered sounds from the opposite side of the kitchen.

“Do you know this dude or did I just invite a stranger into my house with boxes of possible explosives?” Leo walked back into the kitchen to resume his place at the chopping board, leaving a shadowy figure lingering at the doorway.

Nico stood at the edge of the tiled floor, shoulders hunched under an oversized grey sweatshirt that emphasised his already small build. He was holding a couple of cardboard coloured boxes in his hands, tied with red and white baker’s twine. Nico pursed his lips at him and Jason figured that small attempt at a smile was all the greeting he was going to get.

“Hey.” he smiled at Nico, a full formed smile, and then turned his head to look at his knife bearing friend. “You know him, he’s the reason Clarisse stopped calling you Theo instead of Leo.” 

“ _AH_!” Leo pointed his knife at Nico as he seemed to remember their meeting at the Beer Pong table. Their performance as a team had earned them Clarisse La Rue’s respect, which was a lot after a year of Leo’s failed attempts. “Jackson!”

“No!” Jason and Nico replied at the same time, both their heads quickly turning away from Leo to face each other. 

They shared a look, one that didn’t reveal a lot to Jason. He spoke up because he figured out that, for some reason he didn’t know yet. it was hitting a nerve with Nico to use his cousins surname when referring to him. He had used it in his invite because he thought he was starting to understand this boy a little bit, picking at his own sister’s stubborn personality. And he thought he’d respond better to casual teasing than a heart felt invitation to hang out. _Away_ from water and humid heavy air.

He couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but it was obvious his mind was working on something. Jason gave him an almost imperceptible one-shoulder-shrug, as nonchalant as one could be with their hands buried in meat.

“ _Riiiiight_.” Leo broke the silence, his tone suggesting there had been an uncomfortable pause that he needed to fill. Jason didn’t notice. “I didn’t know Not-Jackson?... Was coming. Percy didn’t say anything, that’s all.”

Jason turned his attention back to his best friend. “I invited Nico. And I told you about it less than an hour ago. It was the very first thing I did when I arrived.”

“No, no! I believe you. It just didn’t register.” Leo was trying to cut his carrot in a specific way only he understood, his eyes flicking from Jason to the cutting board. And the subtle smirk in his voice didn’t go unnoticed. “Ya’ know, because I thought it was too troublesome to make friends _outside_ the group. How do you find the time?”

Jason knew what was coming and removed his hands from the very well mixed meat bowl, ready to wrap them around his friend’s neck. Leo must have realised he was hitting the very recent nail on the head because he looked at him like he was accepting a challenge that was never verbally made.

“I mean, you already have your hands so full learning how Reyna likes her eggs in the morning.” He cut the last piece of carrot and raised his eyebrows at Jason, obviously very proud of what he was saying. 

“Will thought I should bring cannoli.” Nico spoke, the first few words louder than they needed to be as he noticed the start of an unwanted exchange. It also reminded the other two parties that there was someone else in the room, which seemed to be enough to shut Leo up. Nico pushed the boxes onto the kitchen island and hid his now free hands in his jeans’ pockets, looking from Leo to Jason, who continued to stare at each other in a silent trade of murderous looks.

Through the corner of his eye, Jason noticed Reyna walking into the kitchen through the open back door to get the rest of the things for the barbecue. She gave Nico a greeting nod and pulled the bowl out of Jason’s reach but, when no one talked, she didn’t go back outside. She left the meat on the counter, hands still circling the big container and ready to bolt back into the sunny afternoon, and looked between Jason and Leo. She studied what were probably very recognisable and familiar expressions to her and sighed.

He was expecting her to just roll her eyes at them and let them bicker as per usual but, maybe because they had company, she had other plans. “Que coño, Leo!”

“ _Mande_?! Yo que dije!?” 

As the louder discussion started, Jason smiled apologetically at Nico and he actually got a shadow of a smile back before the dark haired man resumed watching Reyna and Leo fight over something it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out. He trusted he didn’t have to ask him not to mention it for the rest of the night. Or maybe forever.

The rest of the bunch started arriving shortly after the first sizzle sounded from the grill. It didn’t seem like much but, without Piper and Drew (and her weekly surprise of plus one), their group was considerably smaller. It was just five of them, with the occasional appearance of Rachel Elizabeth Dare, whenever she had a miraculous free weekend. She dated Percy in high school for a couple of weeks until she decided to publicly announce boys weren’t her thing. 

He’d never understand his roommate’s ability to stay friends with every single person he had a conversation with throughout his life. Especially the ones who had officially proclaimed to like him a little bit more than as a friend. It was a skill that didn’t grace Jason. Or Piper, for that matter.

He hadn’t even realised they were an odd number before he invited Nico, giving him an extra reason to be happy he did.

He was a little awkward, at first. He immediately retreated to the corner of the couch when Percy and Annabeth settled into the cushions over the palette-improvised sofa, trying to avoid any topic of conversation as best as he could. Jason noticed Nico was good at circling questions while simultaneously redirecting them into a topic of conversation that wouldn’t involve him. 

“So, what are you studying?” _Nothing as interesting as Architecture. Did you see the spiral Gallery they’re building in Switzerland?_ Annabeth had, in fact, seen the blueprints of said building. And now so had all of them. Who even saves building blueprints to their phone? 

“Percy said you’re working on a swimming related project?” _Yeah. Wouldn’t you include a back-to-back champion team in your project too?_ They spent a while discussing the chances of Percy’s team winning a third year in a row. Nico didn’t participate in said discussion and, if he were being truthful, neither did Jason. He was distracted trying to understand their new guest.

Nico would make conversation without giving too much information about himself, thinking no one was noticing how he only spoke when directly spoken to or how his facial expression only shifted long enough to please whoever was addressing him. How he glanced at his cousin from time to time whenever he said something ridiculous, an indecipherable wrinkle flashing between his eyebrows before he focused on his plate again. How he, no matter what happened, tried to subtly return to the shadows and lay low. 

The skull ring Jason had seen on their first meeting was still on the same thin third finger of Nico’s left hand, quietly clicking against the metal fork as he moved his food on the paper plate. Jason heard his name mid conversation and had to shake his head to get back into the topic, Reyna’s elbow softly poking his arm in question when she noticed he was obviously miles away.

They moved inside when the sun started going down, the last hint of light disappearing as they carried the rest of their food into the kitchen. Jason and Leo were left wrapping everything and finding places for the trays in the fridge while Annabeth and Percy set up the Monopoly. Annabeth didn’t trust people to handle her game as she believed half of them were cheaters, and liked to aggressively point it out anytime she was not winning - and by _people_ she usually meant Jason. 

Monopoly had been put back on the list of acceptable games after Annabeth and Jason had promised not to throw cards and hotels across the room, and he seriously doubted either of them would keep their promise of behaving. He appreciated that their friends actually believed such competitive people wouldn’t get into a fight over a home wrecking game like this one.

Jason had decided from a young age that he should stay away from team sports and direct his competitiveness into his academic feats instead. So, usually, he ran, rom the world - and from himself - sometimes. But his nature made board games a dangerous activity for him.

They appointed Nico as the banker because, according to Percy, he had _mad math skills_ and he he had better chances of coercing his _beloved_ cousin into slipping him a few hundred in fake bills every time he passed START. Nico huffed and raised an eyebrow at him, obviously against the idea, which caused them to laugh at Percy’s shattered expectations.

There was a little screaming (alright, maybe a lot) and Annabeth and Jason got into an argument over the last railway station. Percy tried to get involved but was simultaneously told to shut up by both of them and just sat himself back down on the wooden floor, hands raised in surrender. It all got a little out of control, to the point where Jason got called a _greedy son of a bitch_ , to which he responded that Annabeth was just being _a_ _little bit of a wanker._

Everyone had a laugh, including Nico whose amused smile didn’t go unnoticed by Jason when he put the card back into the bank to end the altercation.

It was shortly past two in the morning when they decided to give Annabeth the win - to Jason’s discontent and Percy’s extreme satisfaction - and wrap up the party.

Reyna didn’t move from her spot in the couch as she waved them goodbye and Jason suspected she’d be falling asleep as she was, buried in couch pillows. Leo held the door open and thanked them for coming, yawning as he let the door softly click behind his guests.

Annabeth had her arm laced on Percy’s and they seemed ready to take off together so Jason gestured with his thumb over his shoulder, the question still forming in his lips.

“You want me to stay with Leo?” 

His roommate smiled and shook his head in denial. “We’re going to my mom’s. Sunday, lunch, blah blah...” 

He tried to be dismissive about it but Jason knew Percy lived through his weeks in anticipation for Sundays. There was no one in the world that man loved more than his mother and, after meeting Sally Jackson, Jason understood it perfectly. 

He envied Percy, sometimes. Having everyone he loved only a few minutes away when the Graces were scattered over the globe. Of course Jason had Thalia in New York, but it was different. As much as she reassured him that he was welcome at any time and that she was happy to have him nag her about every little inconvenience of his boring life, he knew she had other priorities. She was engaged and she had a growing business to run. Jason avoided interrupting her routine with nonsense and restricted his visits to holidays and weekly lunches. She was a busy woman. And, as much as she would hate to hear it - it being the reason why Jason would never say it - she reminded him a little bit of their father. 

The person Jason really missed anytime time he wanted to talk was his mother, who was across the pond in her comfortable little villa. And he didn’t mean his biological mother, who he had never met. He had no reason to even have an opinion on the woman. Thalia hated it, and he avoided doing it as much as possible in her presence, but the woman who had raised him was his only mother. As much as Jason loved Thalia and Luke, June was home for him. She was the person he had turned to for fourteen years. And, when the jealousy towards his friend hit, it was _home_ that he wanted.

He nodded at Percy. “‘Right. Good night, then.” 

They said their goodbyes and Jason realised he was left walking back to Campus with just Nico, who had been very quiet as his cousin walked away in the moonlight. He didn’t look particularly pleased to be walking with Jason and he didn’t know why, but he got the urge to smile at the fact that the boy’s uneasiness seemed to increase because they were alone, despite there being considerably less people around to include him into unplanned conversations.

“Guess it’s just us, then.” Jason noted, walking slowly with his hands curled deep into his denim jacket’s pockets. 

Nico hummed in response, walking next to him with his gaze fixed on the perfectly arranged contraction joints of the sidewalk. He didn’t seem to be interested in making small talk and Jason considered being complacent with that. But he _wanted_ to talk to him. 

“So what’s the deal with you and Percy?” Jason asked, genuinely interested in knowing why they had so much friction between them.

The dark haired boy seemed alarmed by the question, his head jerking up to face him with amazing speed and only relaxing when he registered how relaxed Jason’s features were - purposefully so. There was a moment of doubt where there was the subtlest furrowing of his eyebrows before he shrugged dismissively.

“There’s no _deal_.” He replied, his voice small in the now overwhelming silence of the dark street. “Some people just don’t get along.”

Jason nodded in agreement. “True. But that’s not the case.” 

Nico shot him a mistrusting half smile and the gesture took Jason by surprise. He understood that it was easier to be genuine when you’re displaying negative emotions instead of letting yourself be at ease with others. He still didn’t expect it.

“And what do _you_ know, Sparky?” There was a bit of an accusatory tone in his voice, which Jason ignored at the use of his nickname.

“I notice things, that’s all.” He admitted, not giving any more detail of his observations for fear of being wrong or offending him, somehow.

He got a nod and silent _Ah_ , Nico shaping the sound with his mouth before pursing his lips. It was so hard to decipher what was going on inside his mind it just peaked Jason’s interest even more. He studied Nico’s expression and, when he didn’t say anything, Jason changed the subject.

“Why did you come?” He felt like his questions were crossing some kind of line with the other because Nico had been surprised by both so far.

He fell silent again, pretending to ignore Jason’s attempts at communication or maybe trying to formulate an answer that he thought would please him and distract him, like he had done the whole of the night. But Jason was expecting something of the sort and was ready to deflect. 

They continued walking, passing a couple of houses before Jason assumed Nico wasn’t going to talk. “I mean, you didn’t look like you were having fun at f-”

“I wasn’t.” Nico interrupted him and Jason waited for more information, so the dark haired man continued. “I’m-... I’m not a great conversationalist.”

“I have to disagree with that. I think your chit chat skills are Secret Intelligence worthy.” 

He stopped at the end of an intersection in the sidewalk that lead to the big building complex of dormitories Jason had lived in during his first year at New Rome. Nico looked at him, slightly narrowing his eyes. He recognised that expression as a mix of doubt and strain, like Nico was trying to solve a top difficult math problem without any physical aids, and it drew a laugh from Jason, who ended up shaking his head.

“‘You trying to figure me out?” Jason guessed, pushing his hands further into his pockets and stretching the hard denim of his jacket. 

“Yep.” Nico confirmed, his eyes still fixed on him.

“Is it annoying you?” 

“ _Oh_ , yeah.” He nodded, no hesitation in his response whatsoever.

Jason gave him another laugh and started walking backwards down the side of the street. “Have fun with that, Galileo. I’ll see you around.”

He turned his back on Nico, whose frustrated groan echoed on the empty street like he wanted to make sure Jason knew he was rolling his eyes at him. As much as Jason wanted to look back and see the shift in the other’s expression, he kept making his way home, shaking his head with a content smile on his lips.

  
➿

  
Sunday was the first day Jason had spent alone since he’d gotten back from London. He had no plans and no roommate until the end of the day, which was spent with Percy sitting on his bed and showing pictures of his baby sister Estelle. The rest of the day, he decided to finally go through that long list of books and shows he wanted to catch up with before he was drowning in essays. And he was glad he did.

The first requests from Professors came midway through his second week of lectures. He absolutely hated some of the books he had to objectively study for Latin, which made it harder for him to concentrate on them. 

He dragged his school work to swim practices, which had become more of an unspoken meeting arrangement with Nico Di Angelo. He happily offered small commentary on some of the literature Jason pulled out of his bag, which then turned into an open discussion of themes and characters they mostly disagreed on. 

His interest in classic literature surprised Jason at first, but after he started randomly sharing loose facts about himself, Jason started putting some pieces of his life together.

He knew from Percy that Nico had lost his mother and a sister in a car accident before they had met, when Percy’s aunt married Nico’s father. 

He’d gathered that he had another sister because Nico sometimes mentioned one, but was never specific enough that any other piece of information came through apart from the fact that she was starting to learn how to read. Jason had a rough idea of her age, and that was the only piece of information that told him this was not the sister Nico had lost. Jason also figured he wouldn’t openly talk about his deceased sister with someone he had recently met, just like Jason didn’t talk about his own mother.

He learned Nico enjoyed reading so much because his dad had walls of books in his study, described as such by Nico himself, and he preferred to stay inside than participate in the beach weekends his dad and Kara planned regularly. He also learned he never referred to his father’s new wife by anything else other than her first name. 

He now knew Nico had a dog called Mrs O’Leary because he had been gifted the puppy just after his mother told him about the Chicago fire of ‘71. He’d found the incident too funny to let go. He appreciated when Jason shared that his mother once had a cow with the same name, so much he distracted a few swimmers with his laugh.

On another instance, Nico spent the late afternoon explaining to him how the program he was using for his experimental study worked, to which Jason nodded a lot more than he understood. He unintentionally spotted a picture of Nico and the Solace kid as his background in front of a Roman structure of columns he didn’t have time to recognise. Jason didn’t speak about it as he noticed Nico quickly trying to hide the photo behind an internet tab.

All of this was giving Nico Di Angelo structure as his own person in Jason’s mind, so much he sometimes forgot he was Percy’s little cousin. It had been an easy enough thing to do before, seeing as they had nothing that connected them physically. 

In short, Jason was enjoying Nico’s company. Those two hours every other day were something that, after a couple of weeks, he looked forward to. Apart from Percy - and only because they lived together - and Annabeth, Nico was the person he saw more frequently since classes had started.

  
Jason’s third week of lectures marked the end of October and the change in setting was abrupt for him. He came out of his room one morning, getting ready for one of his runs, to find cobwebs and skulls hanging from the walls, which confused him at first. He quickly caught onto the theme.

He didn’t particularly enjoy Halloween. The costumes, he liked. The parties. Everything else, he could do well without. 

Haunted houses were not his cuppa. He remembered the last time he’d been to one, escorted out after Thalia punched a clown in the face. He couldn’t blame her, he would have probably done it himself had he been in the front of the line of scared people. 

He didn’t have a sweet tooth, turning to savoury things more than candy, so the whole trick or treating tradition flew right over his head. And it wasn’t something they celebrated to avidly back home, either.

Hallow’s Eve. What he dreaded the most was knowing he’d have to accompany his sister to the cemetery to visit his late mother’s stone. Something he only did for Thalia and that he would never remember to do for himself. Or for Beryl Grace.

What he didn’t tell people was that his biological mother was an actress. So, along with him and his sister, Beryl’s tombstone would be riddled with a few of the fanatics that remained from her active fan clubs. Her children’s visit ended as quickly as it took for someone to look at Thalia and recognise her as Beryl’s little girl, and they usually retreated to their small New York city apartment to watch old movies and eat the left overs of trick or treating chocolate. 

As much as he enjoyed spending time with his sister - and her fiancé - he didn’t want to rewatch Beryl’s entire portfolio in one afternoon, sitting in the corner of the couch while Luke tried to cheer both of the Grace’s up with light commentary.

He objectively hated Halloween. 

Percy had learned this in their first year and had decided concentrating on the partying side of the festivities was the best option to lift Jason’s mood.

“So the theme is Greek Mythology.” He started, head resting in Annabeth’s lap and shadowed by her copy of _Brunelleschi's Dome_. “So me and Annabeth are going as Hades and Persephone.”

“The webcomic version.” Annabeth added, flicking her eyes from her book to smile at Jason for a second.

“Yeah. The _webcomic_ version.” Percy shrugged and his lips curved as he lightly shook his head, obviously unaware of what that meant. But he seemed to have agreed to the plan anyway.

He smiled, enjoying their interactions, as he always did with the two of them. It was like Jason was a camera and Annie and Percy were characters in _The Office_ : they just stared at him and expressed their true emotions through eyebrow flicks. It was definitely entertaining.

Annabeth lowered her book and let his softly hit Percy’s face, forcing him to turn his head so that he wouldn’t smush his nose with the hardcover. “You could join us as someone else from it, if you don’t want to go alone.”

Jason shook his head. “No, thank you. I don’t think I’m going.”

Percy pushed the large book away from his face and sat himself up, as physically close to his girlfriend as he possibly could. 

“No, no, _no_. What do you mean, you’re not going?” He seemed to take the information as a personal offence. “You have to, you live here.” Jason chuckled at Percy, nodding as he looked down at his phone and attempted to escape the conversation. “It’s _Halloween_!”

“I don’t want to.” Jason shrugged. “I don’t even have a costume!” 

“We’ll make a toga out of sheets.” Percy offered.

“Togas are Roman, Percy.” Annabeth corrected, eyes back in the pages of her book.

“Yeah, and you’ll be the only one at the party who knows that. Or _cares_.” He playfully closed her book, which earned him an annoyed look he chose to ignore. “We should drape him in white and gold and send him out into the world like the uptight royalty he obviously is.”

Jason scrunched his nose at the sarcasm in Percy’s voice, but he continued.

“No, but seriously... Don’t you have that golden leaf thing you won at the Jupiter Optimus _blah blah blah_ week last year? Wear that!” He clapped his hands, making both Jason and Annabeth look up from their respective distractions. “ _Bam_! Greek God.”

Jason rolled his eyes at him and crossed his arms over his chest. He remembered the oversized gold wreath he’d received after his participation in the charity marathon the University had held during his first year as student. His smiling face in front of the podium had been his Facebook picture for a while. It was hard to forget.

Annabeth gave him a half smile, knowing he’d end up saying yes to Percy just like everyone else did, and just like Jason did sooner or later. He didn’t want to indulge her with his predictability either. At least, not yet.

“I’ll think about it.” 

He settled on a _maybe_ and the couple seemed to be satisfied with that. They went back to their previously programmed activities, leaving Jason lying on his bed with his thoughts. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know if this is where I want it to be but it’s my first time writing and I’m aware I’ll make more mistakes than not! So I’m sorry for that!
> 
> Clichés will exist, yada yada yada. That’s what fan fictions are there for, sometimes... right?
> 
> I’ll see you on the next one


	4. Nico (Week 3 - The Grace Star Paradox)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Halloween. You can be whatever you want to be... Or whatever your roommates want you to be?

_“Pick a star on the dark horizon*_   
_And follow the light.”_

_Regina Spektor -_

He seemed to be constantly busy. The amount of projects he had taken on in just a week was more than he could handle. He knew that, but there was no way he was going to show how overwhelmed he was. Not intentionally. 

He complained about his work to _one_ person only, and it was mostly because he didn’t know what else to talk about at first. And Jason Grace proved to be a good listener when he was not being a smug idiot. He found himself talking more than he wanted to under the muffled sounds of water and best times being yelled over laughs. He didn’t _hate_ it. 

Because of how much he had on his plate, he agreed with most things thrown at him by his roommate without playing close attention to his words. Most of it, he didn’t even remember agreeing too until Will brought up the horrible decision he’d made in trusting him.

That was how he ended up looking at the golden hemmed tunic glinting in the warm light of the room.

“No.” He said, staring at the white and purple drapes Will was smilingly holding against his own torso.

“What do you _mean_ , no?” The smile was replaced by a frown as his friend’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “You said I could pick your costume!”

“I don’t _remember_ saying that. And I have a feeling you know I wasn’t listening to you when you suggested it.”

He let a hint of a smile show before he hid it again, but not before Nico noticed. His friend lowered the costume and looked at his handy work, his voice small when he spoke. “But I made you a crown...”

Nico rolled his eyes and let his head fall back with a huff, facing the ceiling as he spoke. “Who’s that evening supposed to be?”

Will sat on the wooden desk so that he was a few inches taller than Nico, who was uncomfortably sitting on his wheelie chair. He saw the blond smile widely and hug the fabric to his chest. 

“Hyacinthus.” He said dreamily and ruffled Nico’s hair. “The most handsome boy on all the land.” 

Nico laughed, leaning away from his friend’s eager finger and pushing his chair a little further away from him. “ _You_ should wear that.”

“No! This lavender will look good with your complexion.” Will walked back to his bed and set down the costume to pick up a crown made of golden leaves and small flowers in different shades of purple. “Plus, your aversion to haircuts will pay off when you let me curl your hair.” 

“When I _what_!?” 

Apparently it wasn’t up for discussion anymore. 

Nico accidentally skipped Thursday’s swim practice, distracted with work. He noticed it was way past his dinner time when he struggled to read his screen with the glare of the artificial lights of the Library. 

That summed up his academic life pretty well.

He fished his phone from his coat pocket to text an apology to Will and was not surprised to see he already had a a couple of messages from him. Another name lit up on his screen, a _Hope you’re alive (:_ smiling at him. Nico didn’t reply.

He didn’t know what kind of relation he had with Jason yet. He had decided to tolerate to sporadic spurts of overconfidence and smug smiles as he was actually good company, but they rarely talked out of the context of Percy’s swim practice. 

That was another question in his life: Percy. He didn’t think about him as often, which he was happy about. His visits to the Pool Pavilion were solely for studying purposes (almost). He didn’t fixate on his comments or watch him with as much intent. He guessed school was keeping his mind busy enough that he didn’t have time to fertilise any other thoughts. 

Friday was the most peaceful day of the week. He had only one lecture in the morning and decided to take the afternoon for himself. He didn’t carry out any of his original plans and slept through most of it instead, which was probably good since Will made him try on his party costume multiple times for touch ups. They stayed up too late because he wasn’t happy with how Nico’s shoulder was sporting the cluster of fabric and, at one point, Nico thought he might hit it out of frustration. 

They ended up watching a movie while Will made the alterations he needed to make by hand until the first hints of sunlight started peaking through the curtains.

It was past two in the afternoon when they woke up on Saturday, went out for a well deserved and very unhealthy late breakfast and came back to the room to get ready for the Halloween party Delta Nu was throwing in the evening.

He was amazed at the amount of parties the Greek Street had thrown in the first month. Between all the Houses and all the Social Clubs, there was plenty of choice every single day of the week. He didn’t know how some of the most active members of those institutions managed events and classes. He got exhausted just thinking about it.

Nico didn’t need hours to get ready to anything, much less to a costume party where his clothes would most likely be ruined after ten minutes pushing through the crowd. But Will had decided - a long time ago, it seemed - that he was going to take his sweet time with both their costumes. He wasn’t accepting criticism on the matter, either.

Nico sat on his desk chair for what felt like hours with navigating around him and his thick black hair, manoeuvring the curling wand, as he’d called it, and talking about his brother’s equivalent of this party.

“They came as Achilles and Patroclus.” He chuckled, gently selecting a strand of hair near Nico’s face. “They made everyone uncomfortable with their amazing acting, which I think was the main goal of their costumes since the start. They’ll deny it, but I know the kind of idiots they are.”

Nico smiled up at him. “Sounds about right for Lee and Mikey.”

“Yeah... I miss them.” He admitted, wrapping the strand of hair around the hot iron.

Nico liked the Solace brothers as much as his own sisters. He saw them as family and they were, as any other Solace, three of the best people he knew. Lee and Michael were one year apart in age but their parents had enrolled them into school at the same time as they were mostly inseparable. Will always sad he had the unfortunate destiny of being born five years after the middle sibling, which meant he was never in the same school and didn’t have the same relationship with his older brothers as they had with each other.

Both the Solaces and the Di Angelos has stayed in their little corner of San Francisco and Nico and Will has decided to follow Mike and Lee’s footsteps and travel to New York for some independence and a lot of irresponsible choices. Being a little codependent on each other, Nico didn’t think they were accomplishing either of those goals.

“You’ll see them at Christmas.” Nico reassured him, getting a warm smile in return.

“I know.” Will patted him in the shoulder and spun the chair so that it faced away from the desk. “Now, don’t touch your hair. _Please_. Or i’ll use the wand as a weapon.”

He brandished the hair tool at Nico and he faked a salute before moving to his own bed, freeing the desk space for Will.

The rest of the afternoon went quickly. Nico was fascinated watching Will work his own way around his own hair and face, steaming both their costumes like they were getting ready for a gala and not a college party. He knew the blond took the arts a little more seriously than he had to and appreciated any opportunity he had to get fully involved with anything that put that side of him at work. 

Will insisted on putting some make up on Nico’s face, saying he was _supposed to be Hyacinthus and not his ghost_. Nico let him, only because he didn’t want to mess with the good mood his friend had been in over Halloween. And _it was_ a party, after all. He didn’t see why Will shouldn’t go all out on the glitter and the flowers.

Nico stood in front of the tall mirror and tried to pinpoint what was the exact part of his costume that made him look so much like a stranger to himself. His tiredness was covered by makeup, a smudge of lavender eyeshadow framing his eyes like a superhero mask, fading to a pinkish color on the edges. He’d been slapped in the hand when he instinctively tried to touch it. The curls merged perfectly with the golden laurel and the flowers on his head, matching the white tunic and the purple half cape Will pinned to one of his sleeves with a golden pin. 

Nico smiles at his reflection, a half curled motion that said _Not bad_ as he inspected the rest of his costume. 

“You know, maybe I was born a few millennia too late...” 

Will eyed him through the small desk mirror he was using to drown his fake battle wounds in red. “Yes, yes. You look good in white, I’m shocked.” 

Nico rolled his eyes at the unnecessary sarcasm and turned away from his reflection to frown directly at his friend.

“Don’t start. We all know you dress like a grieving goth person by choice.” Will shrugged and dragged his words, mouth open in a strategic position as he moved the small brush in a straight line. “You _have_ been told you could look less... ill and dark, I guess. If you wanted to.”

Rolling his eyes, Nico sat back down in the bed and started impatiently hitting his phone on his thigh. “I’m sorry if I don’t have the patience to do this every day.”

“I forgive you, handsome.” Will winked at him and dropped the make up into his organised case, standing up almost immediately and spreading his arms as he looked back at Nico. “How’s this?”

Nico sat up straighter in the bed and examined Will from head to toe. He wore red, his torso covered in brown, fitted leather in the shape of armour. He had an hopefully fake sword at his waist - knowing Will, anything was possible - protected by a scabbard, and a voluminous wool cape on one shoulder, golden designs curling around the edges.

“Are you supposed to be... Jason?” Nico remembered something about the Argonauts and the Golden Fleece that healed any illness. Fitting for a medical student.

“I know there’s only space for one of those in your life, dear Hyacinthus.” Will bowed and reached his hand for the doorknob. “But I’m sure you’ll make do.”

Nico threw his pillow at him, a burst of laughter echoing through the corridor after Will opened their door and they both made their way down the staircase. 

The street was darker than usual, illuminated only by the Halloween decorations of the University buildings. As they stepped out of the main Campus and walked into the adjacent streets, they could hear the echo of conversations and the ruffling of feet as people walked toward the Greek Street. 

Some people ignored the theme of the party completely, a group of Ninja Turtles in togas running past them right after a couple of girls trotted down in lingerie. He didn’t want to ask what they were trying to be.

The Delta Nu mansion - if it still qualified as such when it was slowly falling apart - had a new corinthian gate clearing a path up to the entrance where people were taking pictures with their elaborate costumes. Students gathered outside next to ghostly decorations and lit up torches, a couple of bars set up on either side of the huge garden. 

“Guess the Deltas really like Halloween, huh?” Will offered, smiling at every new piece of information his brain registered as he passed a new costume or a new decoration carefully placed on the lawn. 

Nico hummed in response and kept looking around at people, inspecting their clothes and quickly realising he was not the most dressed up person in there, even if he still felt like Will had overdone it a little bit.

They walked around the house to the pool area and Nico’s jaw dropped slightly as he saw the amount of work the Frat had put into the party. “They have _water nymphs_?”

Will laughed in excitement as he saw the group of girls swimming around the pool and cheerfully talking to guests. Nico recognised a few from his previous party as members of the Sorority that co-hosted Delta’s parties and figured this must have been a joined effort because there was no way a bunch of brainless boys like his cousin had come up with all of this.

“Legacy!” Nico turned in time to see someone put an arm around Will.

He was dressed in a full suit, skin painted blue white hair slicked back neatly. Percy Jackson was almost unrecognisable in his costume and Nico couldn’t hide his amused surprised.

“I know, right?” His cousin nodded at him, seeing his expression, arm still possessively resting on Will’s shoulders. “Imma take Hercules here to do some shots. We have a score to settle. Ya’ wanna come?” 

“Jason.” Nico corrected, and he immediately understood his mistake because Will muffled a laugh and Percy looked surprised.

“Oh yeah, he’s here somewhere.” His cousin stood on the tip of his toes to look around them. 

Nico cursed under his breath and shook his head, gesturing towards Will. “No, he’s supposed to be _Jason_! Not Hercules.” 

Percy looked at Will, examining the boy, nose more than a few centimetres into his personal space, before smiling and grabbing him by the nape of his neck. Will chuckled back at him, like they were sharing an inside joke Nico didn’t want to be in on. 

“Sure. This won’t be confusing _at all_.” Percy raised his eyebrows at Nico, smile still tugging at his lips. “Shots?”

Nico nodded quickly and Will jumped up and down like a child before they both followed Percy around the pool as he made his way to the drinks. A girl smiled and waved at Nico from the pool of water nymphs and he shyly waved back, the small smile being wiped off his face when Will grabbed his wrist to drag him through the unbelievable amount of Zeuses and their long and disarrayed beards.

Percy was already at the bar ordering and Nico noticed Annabeth was having a conversation with Leo right behind him. She was bright pink, a red dress and cape with greek motifs on the rims falling down her back. He understood what they were dressed as two seconds before Will yelled _Persephone_! and got an high five by the _usually_ blond woman. It was smart and he was almost certain he wouldn’t see anyone else committing to full body paint the whole night.

Leo sported a simple white tunic and a pair of wings as tall as him, reflecting gold and silver in the firelight of the torches. Nico smiled to himself, finding it ironic that Icarus was once again standing so close to a source of heat. 

Will passed him his shot glass and clinked it with his own, following Percy’s _Bottoms Up_. But Nico’s drink was frozen halfway to his lips as he watched a wave of gold jump out of the back door of the house, followed by a blur of silver that Nico selectively ignored.

He looked undoubtedly regal, staying true to the theme of his costume and lighting the way with a bright smile. The golden cape was draped across his torso and over one of his arms in a translucent fabric that let the outline of his deltoid and collarbone peek through. The cowl cleavage of his main white tunic fell down to the middle of his chest in a crumpled arch of fabric that was almost slipping down his shoulder. Shiny star appliqués reflected the evening light as his tunic moved with every step, the gold jewellery that framed his shoulders stretching with it. 

Nico stared open mouthed at the spiked sun crown that framed Jason’s perfect blond hair and the wrinkles that formed in the golden glitter that illuminated his cheeks. His shot glass still hung against his bottom lip after everyone else set theirs down on the makeshift bar, a few questions he was too sober to try and answer swimming behind his eyes. 

_Nope_. That was his last coherent thought before he downed the first drink of the night, turning away from Jason to find Will smiling widely at him, teeth and all, confirming that he had not only noticed but had also registered it and planned on sharing his thoughts on it later.

He didn’t have to speak for Will to chuckle and turn to greet Jason with a smile, high-fiving Reyna who was the silver blur Nico had spotted behind the regal form he had unintentionally focused on.

“Apollo graces us with his presence.” Leo mocked a bow, followed by Jason who tried to mimic it by going lower than he could tolerate and almost impaled Annabeth with his spiky crown. 

He chuckled as he straightened himself and held on to the side of the bar for support, his voice forcefully coming out in a lower pitch that only emphasised his usually natural british accent. “I _grace_ you with my presence every day, Leonidas.” 

Reyna pushed his shoulder as a soft punishment for the bad pun. Jason didn’t seem to mind, mid chuckle, apart from the slight loss of balance that he quickly recovered from. They both laughed at each other while Percy and Annabeth exchanges a knowing look, like Reyna laughing told them the exact state of alcohol intoxication they were on.

 _Boy_ , Nico wished he was nearly as drunk as those two. But he wasn’t and he didn’t remember ever being so blacked out drunk he couldn’t hold himself up. But they looked like they were having fun, arms hooked like Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

The group recovered from the new arrivals quickly, Percy’s original plan of healthy drinking competition pulling Will closer to the bar.

Annabeth noticed how quiet Nico had gotten without his social crutch and tried for a conversation about their costumes. She was nice, like that. He was pretty sure she didn’t need to maintain a conversation to occupy her time and only did it because she thought it would help Nico.

He hated her before, like the troubled teenager he was, because she and Percy were high school sweethearts. He was glad he was given the chance to enjoy her friendship instead. At least he thought that they could be friends.

She was smart and she lost track of things once she got started on a topic that interested her. But Nico didn’t mind listening more than he talked, so she was a good choice of company. 

Annabeth’s point about the Roman empire was interrupted by a hand on her shoulder. She looked back at its owner and after an almost imperceptible moment of shock, she smiled. “Piper!”

The girl smiled back at her. “Hi! I almost didn’t recognise you!” 

“Ah, yeah... You look great! This is Nico, by the way.” Annabeth gestured towards Nico and the girl, Piper, nodded at him in greeting.

She did look _great_. Nico didn’t think he’d seen many women as beautiful as her. It was ridiculous how everyone looked so much better in their ancient getups but Nico figured, in her case, the choice of clothes wouldn’t make much of a difference. On a closer look, he didn’t even think she was wearing any makeup. And her hair wasn’t as well put together as it seemed to be at first glance. Still, as gay as he was, he wanted to keep looking at her like one does at a painting or an art piece you don’t quite understand.

She has a welcoming aura, drawing people to her. He didn’t think he saw her warm smile falter for a second during the conversation and her body language kept Annabeth’s undivided attention on her. And Nico’s, for that matter.

As silly as it sounded, she reminded him of Sally Jackson.

“Helen! The most beautiful woman in Greece!” Reyna’s shoulder lightly hit Nico’s as she joined the conversation, obviously referring to Piper’s costume. He noticed a bitter tone in her voice he hadn’t heard before.

He hadn’t even thought about who Piper was supposed to be.

“In the world.” Annabeth corrected.

Reyna nodded at her, but the silent thank you was tinted with sarcasm. Nico almost winced at her expression, but looked away instead.

“Reyna.” Piper greeted, her eyes shooting to Tweedledum, who expectedly followed Reyna. “Hi, Jason.”

Nico studied the man’s expression. He seemed to freeze for a second before he shot her his best smile in response. He wondered what had happened between these people. It was clear as day that there was some kind of complicated history between the three of them that made even Annabeth a little uncomfortable.

Piper huffed out a chuckle and smiled at her feet as she nodded. “Okay...” She offered, probably thinking that the gesture was all she was going to get from Jason.

“What an honor to be in the presence of the two most beautiful humans in Greek legend.” He said, winking at Nico. “Homer must be turning in his grave.” 

“Only one of them died for you, though.” Annabeth joked, but her smiled almost faded as she seemed to realise maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say. 

Nico smiled, wondering how many times Annabeth Chase got in trouble just for trying to be historically accurate or by correcting a fact instinctively. By her reaction, there seemed to be a precedent.

Jason nodded at her and looked back at Nico, offering him his hand in a half curtsey. “That’s true. Maybe I should buy him a drink.”

He looked from the golden sprinkled hand in front of him to the glass free, electric blue eyes waiting for an answer. “...What?”

Was Jason really completely oblivious to how the gesture made Nico’s heart act like it was auditioning for the _Cirque du Soleil_? Or did he know exactly what he was doing, with his ridiculous smile and his expectant, brilliant eyes? Nico silently thanked the fact that his cheeks were already slightly tinged by the purple and pink colours of his makeup when he felt his face go warm. 

“Come on, lover boy...”

When Nico didn’t take his hand, Jason just slid it over his shoulders to hook his arm around his neck and guide him away from the girls. As Nico looked back at Annabeth for an explanation, she just shrugged and smiled at him, Piper and Reyna both looking at them a little confused. He was starting to hate blonds and their perceptive eye.

Whoever came up with the _dumb blond_ stereotype clearly wasn’t friends with many. 

“So which one of you dated Piper?” Nico finally asked.

The obvious answer was Jason, but it seemed like a reasonable question to ask. He could assume it had been either Jason or Reyna but, by the tension between them, it was hard to pinpoint who exactly had been involved with the beautiful woman. It could be either of them, really. Reyna appeared to be a little more angry towards Helen of Troy than Jason was, seeing as he just directed his attention somewhere else. To Nico. And those were two very possible reactions to running into and ex.

Jason pointed at himself with the thumb of his free hand, his alcohol filled breath hitting Nico’s cheek as he turned his head to look at him. “She and Reyna have some history too, though... Don’t ask.”

He then waved his hand dismissively, slowly letting go of Nico and crossing the doorframe into the crowded kitchen. “I don’t want to talk about that. Her. Them.”

He didn’t know if Jason was just correcting himself or adding more points to the _things he didn’t want to talk about_ list. Then, he reached for a closed bottle of something alcoholic Nico didn’t manage to identify, pulling it off the counter and smiling back at him. “I think I’m gonna run of to the roof. Ya’ coming?”

Nico opened his mouth in protest but he thought about letting the drunk guy go to the third floor of a house without supervision and rolled his eyes, nodding. He didn’t have much of a choice.

They passed through the dancing people in the main room of the house, the Delta Nu member by the stairs just smiling at Jason as he passed into forbidden territory. He had run into that same guy in their previous party while looking for the bathroom and had been stopped from crossing into the dorm part of the Fraternity House. He let him through this time.

As they stepped back into the fresh air of the night, Nico walked to the side of the small terrace. It was fully concrete and surrounded by dark brown roof tiles that followed up the angled rooftop of the house. He noticed the metal box on the wall next to the door and assumed the space only existed for maintenance access.

It was still a good hideout and Nico thought to himself that he would probably spend a lot of time in the reserved, small space if he lived in the Chapter House.

“Do you come here a lot?” Nico asked, looking over the edge to the partying people three stories down. 

The colours swirled as people laughed and danced over the distant sound of the music. He didn’t exactly mind being away from the chaos of the party, although babysitting a drunk Frat guy had not been on his plans that night. 

“I guess... Whenever I want to be alone.” 

The answer came from above and Nico frowned, confused as to why the sound came from so high, before turning his head and seeing leather sandals and legs before anything else. 

His heart was back at the circus, this time venturing into a net free trapeze of dread. Jason had gotten up on the ledge and was distractedly looking down at the same scenery Nico had been moments before. 

“What-... Jason, what the _fuck_! ” He asked, his hand hovering close to one of his calves as if he would be able to hold his weight in the eventuality that he tipped the wrong way. He knew he couldn’t, which made his heart beat even faster. “You’re too drunk to be doing this. Come down!”

“I’m fine!” Jason said dismissively, looking at Nico for a second before taking a sip of his stolen bottle.

The way he leaned dangerously forward when the bottle left his lips made Nico instinctively take a step closer. He still didn’t touch him, afraid he’d just make him lose his balance. 

“Jason.” He pleaded again.

“It’s *fine*!” Jason snapped at him and took a step away from Nico on the wide edge. “Although thinking about how I’d have to listen to Reyna ramble about Piper until morning, maybe jumping _is_ the only way I’ll go back down there.”

“That’s not funny.” Nico offered quickly after he finished talking.

Jason chuckled and wobbled his head, as if deciding if Nico was right or not. He obviously disagreed. “It’s a little funny.”

Nico decided not to move closer, not knowing exactly where Jason was coming from with the joke. There was still a lot he didn’t know about the man and apparently his dating history was a relevant piece of information he should try to get from his cousin sometime. 

Did he do this often? Did he come up to a ledge alone to contemplate _jumping_? Or was it really just a tasteless, drunken joke that he’d probably not remember the next day?

“Relax.” Jason said, as if reading his thoughts. “I don’t want to jump.”

“I’m not going to relax while you’re up there.” He admitted, earning him a fond smile from Jason. “Don’t. It’s not _endearing_ , I just don’t want to be in a murder investigation.”

Jason laughed. “Okay...”

But he didn’t come down. Nico groaned.

“You know.” He continued, full bottle dangling from his fingers next to his leg. Nico read the _Schnapps_ label before looking back up at the man. “I used to dream about flying.”

“Stop.” Nico said in warning, resting his hands on the cold concrete and staring up at his friend.

“No!” He laughed, the sound fading and leaving him with a neutral expression as he looked from Nico to the crowd. “That’s not what I meant... I wanted to be an airforce pilot. Stunts and loops and... You know. Be high up in the air. Alone.”

Nico felt like looking away from Jason, thinking he might want the same privacy he usually did when he shared something that was close to his heart with a stranger. And yes, he knew they weren’t strangers anymore. But did Jason think so, too?

“I’ve always liked the sky... What it implies. Freedom. No one can bother you up there... But I’m not cutout for military... My mom says I’m too soft.” He huffed, as if remembering that specific conversation. “She hates that I’m comfortable with heights. So does Thalia...”

He looked from the stars to Nico and, as their eyes met, it was hard for him to hide how much he agreed with the Grace women. He was very on edge with having him up on that ledge. And Jason seemed to understand that, because he nodded to himself and stepped back into the ground of the terrace. 

Nico sighed, relieved, and leaned against the half wall that separated him from the fall into the lawn.

“Sorry.” Jason whispered, backing away into a more central position in the square of concrete. 

“It’s... fine.” It wasn’t. But Nico didn’t know what else to tell the drunk boy who was suddenly telling him the most personal thing he’d heard out of his mouth. On a ledge. Three floors above the ground.

“Did you have a good relationship with your mom? And your sister?” 

Nico was caught by surprise by the question. He just nodded. He didn’t want to talk about his late family with the drunken form of Jason Grace. But drinking seemed to have given him the courage he lacked to ask questions during their many conversations at the poolside.

He nodded, accepting his short answer and pacing slowly. “I wish I did... With my sister at least.” 

“She’s still here. So...” Nico walked next to him and sat down next to him. He placed his hands underneath his extended legs, against the cement, taking deep breaths to calm the nervous trembling. “You still can.”

Jason hummed and stared up at the sky he apparently loved, the moonlight reflecting in the small speckles of glitter in his cheeks. “She’s afraid of heights. My sister.” 

He stopped talking but Nico figured he wasn’t done, so he didn’t speak.

“We’re nothing alike... She wanted us to be closer and that’s why she asked me to come live with her and I did. I thought it was going to be amazing, that she would be this fiction worthy big sister and ...” He sighed and put one his hands behind his head for support. “She’s so much better than that. She’s real. Still... I feel like we’re strangers... I hate it. I hate that the idea I had of her didn’t meet the expectation. I hate that it is stopping me from being closer to my sister...”

“Why are you telling me this?” Nico asked, looking down at him.

Jason met him with a thoughtful expression. “I don’t know... Because you’re willing to... really listen.”

Nico nodded, suddenly very interested by the hem of his tunic that rested on top of his knees. He was willing to listen to everyone, that was nothing new. That was how he usually figured people out. And he had been listening to Jason for what...? Three weeks? And yet, it was the first time he sounded like more than Percy’s hot roommate. 

“You think I’m a twat.” Jason didn’t pose it as a question. The term made Nico laugh.

“Sometimes.” He admitted, eyes still focused on the golden thread of his clothes instead of on Jason.

They were silent for a while. Nico kept thinking the last time he thought about lying under starlight on a roof, he didn’t imagine it being with a drunk straight boy. And most certainly, not this specific one. 

“I like you, Nico...” Jason whispered, and Nico decided to wait for the rest of it. The part that came after the _but_ , the catch. It didn’t come. That was all he had to say.

“Thanks.” He let himself fall back to lie down next to Jason, looking up at the multitude of fixed luminous points of burning hydrogen in the distance.

Jason found his response funny, because he laughed quietly as he too watched the shimmering sky above them.

“I know what you mean.” Nico added to the previous conversation. He didn’t know if it was because he wanted Jason to share more with him or if he felt like he owed him something in exchange for his thoughts. “About the idea of someone keeping you from them.” 

Jason nodded slowly.

“I have a crush on Percy.” As Nico spoke, Jason’s head quickly turned to face him, and he felt like he needed to explain himself. So he continued. “Had. Actually... I don’t know. I feel like I don’t really see _him_. Like your sister. I just see... What I wanted him to be when I met him. And that’s why I can’t have a normal relationship with him. I... haven’t let that go yet.”

“You think we need to let go?” Jason spoke after a few moments of silence, his eyes trailing away from Nico to watch the night sky again.

“I know I do...” 

Jason chuckled. “They’re like... our stars. How do you let go of that?...” 

Nico turned his head to look at him, a confused smiled growing on his lips. Jason only noticed he was expecting him to elaborate on his statement when he too turned to face him. 

“I mean, we see them...” he spoke in a whisper, his nose almost grazing on Nico’s. “They’re right there but we’re so far out of reach... Like we can’t _really_ see the atoms at their core. We only see the light.”

“Are you trying to drunk talk physics to me?” Nico whispered back.

“No...” He wrinkled his nose, closing his eyes with that complacent smile that made Nico want to slap him back on his lips. “I’m obviously succeeding.” 

Nico laughed at his answer, causing Jason to chuckle before he turned his attention back to the stars.

As they lied there in silence for the a good chunk of the party, Nico could feel his phone buzzing in his pocket. He knew it was Will wondering where he had gone but he decided not to worry about it.

He couldn’t say he was entirely disappointed he’d ended up in that roof instead of involved in the planned party activities Halloween had in store for him and Will. He was sure he’d have other opportunities to go crazy in a costume with his best friend.

He felt a little anxious being alone with Jason in such a vulnerable setting, where they were both being open and real. He never thought he’d talk about Percy to anyone but his own best friend and he didn’t expect the second person to _know_ that about him to be his cousin’s roommate.

And then, it donned on him: what had he done? 

He refrained from looking back at Jason, his worry hanging on his eyebrow as he thought about the mess he’d be in if the blond decided to tell Percy how Nico felt about him. Past or present. Although he thought past and present represented two different sets of feelings, he didn’t expect other people to understand that.

But he decided to ignore the nervous tingling under his skin and take a deep breath. He’d officially made a friend. As cliché as the pivotal moment was, Jason was there, flesh and bone. And Nico decided that was what he was going to remember from his first All Hallow’s Eve away from San Francisco: the faint scent of _Apple Schnapps_ , the moon and the secrets the two of them now shared with the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is small. But I had only one thing planned for the boys on Halloween and this was where I wanted it to cut off, so...
> 
> I hope you’re enjoying so far. Some Thalia and Jason quality time coming up next.


	5. Jason (Week 4 - Relative Positioning)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s all relative positioning. Tomorrow is certain but what is real tomorrow was not real yesterday. So why wait?

_“It's just I'm constantly on the cusp of tryin' to kiss you_  
_I don't know if you feel the same as I do._

_Artic Monkeys -_

The mood was definitely a low at the Grace apartment.

Jason had the biggest hangover he’d had in a long time and he prayed to the Greek Row gods that his sister didn’t engage in loud conversation with him. Or even any dialogue at all.

The morning was quiet and much of what Jason had been expecting.

They stood in front of Beryl’s grave for as long as Thalia needed to stare at the old picture of the movie star. 

Jason felt like he despised the woman a little bit more for we very minute he stood there, looking at her perfect blond curls and her carefully painted red lipstick. It was a beautiful photo. Did people know it in no way reflected the reality of her life?

Did the man watching them from a nearby bench know Beryl Grace had left both her children, who were two and nine years old at the time, in a theme park in Sonoma so she could attend an exclusive party somewhere else in California?

Most importantly, did he still think as highly of her even with that piece of information?

Beryl was the reason Thalia had an horrible childhood and an even worse adolescence (her and Jeremiah Grace, their great excuse of a father, but that was a different matter entirely). Jason didn’t think remembering the woman would change his opinion of her at all.

He felt horrible. Physically, mostly. But thinking about how he didn’t want to talk to Thalia after their morning in the Cemetery gave him a mental pain that transcended his headache. The whole point of the extended weekend was to support her and let her do the same for him.

The thing was that Jason obviously didn’t need his hand held when it came to his biological mother and he didn’t think Thalia did either. Not anymore. So he didn’t understand why they kept putting so much time and effort into visiting her stone. 

Sometimes, Jason wondered if Thalia took him there so much to rub him in the dead woman’s figurative face. Like she was saying _Look, you didn’t mess us up! But nice try._

He regretted getting so drunk the night before, but he always did on Halloween. Maybe it was his best way to pay homage to the great Beryl Grace. Raising a glass was something she would have understood well. Or a few bottles.

He supported his forehead in the palms of his hands, elbows already sore from resting against the wood of the dinning table he hadn’t moved from since lunch. The pressure of his hands against the soft patch above his eyebrows had calmed the pulsing pain he felt and he didn’t think he was ready to see if the relief was positional.

Luke and Thalia has been sitting on the sofa for a couple of hours, curled up with each other like any other Saturday afternoon. 

He liked Luke. The guy was good to Thalia and they seemed to be able to communicate clearly without many words, which proved how well they knew each other. Jason was happy she had _someone_ besides himself. Thankfully - and he knew it was a selfish thought - she had someone else to turn to besides her long lost brother, who came into her life as a full formed, obnoxious teenager and grew into someone who felt so much like an outsider in her home he ran away to a University campus.

“Hey...”

Thalia startled him, softly pulling the chair next to him to sit down. Jason barely managed to hold back an irritated groan. He lifted his head quickly, the movement blurring his sight. He had to carefully remove his glasses and place them on the table to rub his eyelids with his thumb and index finger. The fog dispersed.

She tilted her head to give him a warm, motherly smile. “‘You okay?”

Jason nodded, the lump in his throat growing ever so slightly at her worry. He cleared his throat.

“I’m fine. Long night.” He explained as he sat himself a little straighter and shot her a small smile. “How are you holding up?” 

She replied with a shrug and nothing more than silence. Which meant things were a little worse than she wanted to let on. He figured he’d wait in case she wanted to elaborate on her cryptic shrug and tell him what was bothering her.

“We’ve been talking about Christmas.” She finally whispered, probably afraid Luke would hear her.

Thalia didn’t usually complain. She had decided at some point in her very difficult life that she wouldn’t burden other people with her problems. It usually led to her storming out of the apartment after a small argument, piling up weeks of bottled emotions until she had to scream them out or run. And she did. And it wasn’t pretty.

Jason was thankful that she had also revised that decision and decided it was worth talking to her brother about her worries, sometimes. With that thought, the guilt ran again in the back of his mind.

“And...?” Jason urged her on, while she eyed the door to the living room where her fiancé was watching a typical weekend family movie in their sofa.

He didn’t know why she was being so cautious. Luke wouldn’t come into the room unless called for. He had always been very respectful of the siblings’ space. But she leaned in anyway.

“Dad invited us to London.” She muttered, jaw clenched as if she didn’t want to even speak those words into existence. Like saying them would make them a real thing she didn’t want to acknowledge.

Jason nodded, very aware that the last thing his sister, - who was horribly terrified of heights - wanted to do was fly for eight to ten hours to spend the Holidays with people she didn’t particularly like. He knew their dad has most likely done it after Jason insisting with June that they were very condescending toward his sister. And, even after insisting that Jason was wrong, his mother must have come to her senses.

He didn’t know if this was exactly what he meant when he asked them to fix things with Thalia. But it was a start. 

“So? Don’t go.” He offered, thinking that was what she wanted to hear from him.

He thought he could release her from the obligation of going to a stranger’s house for his benefit.

But Thalia shook her head. “No, I’m definitely going. I can break your sweet little fingers from holding on too tight when the plane takes off... For your sins.”

As if to make her point, she placed her hand on his, her fingers closing over his own resting on the wooden surface. Jason smiled at her. The gesture was clouded by the familiar sense of culpability that hovered over him since the conversation started.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Thalia noticed, grabbing his hand with a little more intent. “Is this still about Piper?”

He couldn’t help but let out a laugh. “No.”

“Good. You’re too good for her, anyway.” 

Jason knew Thalia was only trying to make him feel better, but he still had to disagree. “No, don’t say that. Piper is good. I’m not _too good_ for her, I’m just... not right.”

He was a little surprised to realise that mid conversation. Although he still condemned Pipers choice of delivery, maybe it was not the worst that she realised she wanted something different before they invested any more time into a relationship destined to fail. 

His sister seemed surprised by his response too, the shorter hairs that framed her face falling from behind her ear as she tilted her head at him. “Wow, look at you... So mature.” 

“Oh, shut up.” He pushed her gently, to which she chuckled.

She swung closer to him after trying to dodge the playful shove, putting one arm around his torso to rest her cheek on the clustered fabric of his hoodie that sat on his shoulder. 

“Did you come to that conclusion on your own or was there a special someone involved in the process?” She asked mockingly but as softly as she could, with genuine curiosity behind her words.

He thought he had a clear answer to give her but, as he opened his mouth to say the words, he didn’t let them out. Instead he furrowed his brows as he stared at the tall glass display cupboard directly ahead of him. 

He was ready to say he had just moved on from Piper on his own. It was the easiest, safest answer to give Thalia. It was also the easiest thing for him to make himself believe when the time he needed to process that information was going to be more extensive than the few seconds he had to reply. But, considering he had been sulking about his ex girlfriend for most of the summer and he didn’t stop until he became a regular attendee of Percy’s swim practices, he wasn’t so sure it was the truth.

The blinding headache was not the only thing he had been trying to get rid of. He’d been blinking the picture of those dark eyes out of his mind since he woke up, along with the small wrinkles that formed on their corners as they smiled. The faint memory of laughing sounded with it, long lashes dangerously blinking at him at the literal tip of his nose.

_I like you, Nico._

He did. Nico was good company, a good friend to have around. They had their moments.

 _Thanks_.

He almost laughed at how ridiculously confusing that had become in his sobriety. 

He’d heard before that drunk talk wasn’t just nonsense, that alcohol was a little bit of a truth serum sometimes. It had sure make his mouth run faster than his thoughts could adjust. He had no chance to filter them. 

Jason believed Nico had dismissed his rambling, and that was probably for the best.

He decided he’d keep that to himself one second too late. He had already hesitated. And that seemed enough to peak Thalia’s interest.

She quickly put a few inches between them so she could look him in the eye, hand still clasping his and an amused smile hinting at her lips. “Jason Julius Grace!“

He groaned, not only because of the change in volume but because they were about the enter an discussion he had just archived in the back of his mind and didn’t want to open for a while.

Luke seemed to get the cue to make his presence known since they were no longer speaking in a hushed voice, and dragged his slippers through the wooden floor. 

He smiled at Jason, a gruesome white scar stretching on his left cheek. He’d never asked where Luke had gotten such a mark and he didn’t think he would ever willingly tell him. Neither did Thalia, which Jason respected. 

The old wound took little to nothing of his rugged handsomeness. Maybe even added a little mystery to what would otherwise be a ordinarily beautiful man.

“What has he done now?” He asked casually, his hands deep in his sweatpants’ pockets as he leaned against the wooden doorframe.

“Nothing.” Jason replied, rolling his eyes at him, indicating his sister was yet again exaggerating. And with lack of enough information to do so.

“Jason has a new girlfriend.” Her musical tone made her fiancé’s smile widen.

“Did he tell you that or did you use your infallible powers of deduction to rip it out of him?” Luke joked, tilting his head at both of them.

Jason liked that he didn’t automatically take Thalia’s side. So he smiled at him in a silent _thank you_. Luke just shook his head at the woman’s excitement and crossed his arms over his chest.

Thalia lightly slapped Jason’s forearm at the exchange and he retrieved his hand from the table, raising his eyebrows at her. She only took it as an invitation to continue her speculation.

“You’re into someone!” Jason couldn’t exactly fight her on that one. “Tell me who she is!”

He shook his head and slid out of his chair to stand up, shaking his head. He really didn’t want to contradict his sister and start a whole new and different topic he had buried even deeper than the swirl of purple and pink face paint he’d just shoved aside, but he was close to do so. 

Maybe it wasn’t so bad if he did.

“I’m going to get a cup of water.” He announced, casually circling Thalia and her _O_ shaped mouth.

She turned to follow his movement with her eyes. The fact that he dismissed her request seemed to work like fuel for her to keep pressing for an answer.

“Jason, come on!” She pleaded, but made no effort to get up from her chair, which he was silently thankful for.

He crossed into the kitchen linoleum and reached for a glass to loudly prop it on the counter. He could hear the silent whispers between his sister and her fiancé as he most likely insisted for her to drop it. But it was Thalia. There was no _dropping it_ with Thalia.

“It’s not like I’m ever going to talk to your New Rome girlfriends anyway, just tell me!” She urged as he walked back into the dining room. 

He didn’t spend too long thinking about the consequences of his next action, placing the half full cup of water on the unprotected surface of the table.

“It’s not a girl.” He said calmly, looking back at her.

Although his words were quiet, the feel they left in the room was the same as if he had screamed them.

There was a moment of pure silence. Thalia squinted at him, like she was trying to decide if he was telling her the truth or just trying to get her to shut up. 

After a few seconds, her stare was starting to get uncomfortable, piercing into his soul like a hot iron, and Jason had to look away. He puffed out his cheeks as he inspected the eggshell white color of the walls in an attempt to distract himself from the anxiety that cling to the nape of his neck.

He had never found necessary to tell Thalia about most of his high school conquests. Especially the boys.

His sister worked nights throughout his school days and Luke hadn’t been living with them, then. So, for three to four days a week, the apartment was Jason’s from nine o’clock in the night.

She had never given Jason much restriction on what he could and could not do, trusting he wouldn’t get into trouble. And he didn’t. But he did have people over, sometimes. 

Thalia knew this, but she had always assumed what she wanted to. So he let her.

He didn’t think he had come out to anyone. Not with _words_. 

Reyna knew, by assumption mostly. They spent a long time together during those four years of high school hell for her to notice things. Leo would have too, but he was too distracted with building pen castles or functional spit ball guns to do so.

Reyna never made a big deal out of it so Jason never had the need to explicitly say out loud he liked men too. 

If anyone else knew, they didn’t mention it to him. But he was almost sure that wasn’t the case.

Luke bit down his bottom lip, fighting back a smile , or a laugh, which Jason quickly realised was not directed at him. 

His sister was still in the same position in her chair, mouth half open like she was about to say something , eyes trailing the air as she seemed to be having as much trouble finding her words as Jason had the night before.

“Huh... Well!” She sounded, looking at Jason again and letting her smile slowly grow back into her mouth. “...Is he cute?”

She gave him a one shoulder shrug, as if her question was the only obvious response to Jason’s statement. Her soon to be husband finally let out the laugh he’d been holding and, with an eye roll, Jason slowly followed suit.

They were okay. Everything was _fine_.

  
➿

  
According to Nico, the second week of November was uneventful. Jason highly disagreed.

They’d had some good talks, surrounded by the chlorine filled air, specifically one where Jason heard about how Nico’s father had planned a trip to Brazil for Thanksgiving. 

“So I’ll have to eat my turkey with the Jacksons. I can’t believe he’s doing this again.” Nico tried to sound more emotionless than he was feeling, eyes fixed on the water.

“Again?” Jason asked.

“Well... Yeah!” He confirmed. “Last year was Paris. The year before that? Japan. It’s like he’s avoiding it. It’s starting to piss me off.”

“Does he have a reason to avoid it?” 

Nico puffed, annoyed, like he didn’t expect that. He was quiet for a long time, during which Jason just watched the shift in his expression. The silence led him to believe Nico didn’t expect to be sharing the extent of his worries when he casually vented about having to spend Thanksgiving apart from his family.

He always did that. He talked comfortably about his life, more and more every time they god together and had a conversation, only to act like he shouldn’t have shared such high trade secrets whenever Jason engaged with him and asked questions.

He wondered why he felt that way.

When Nico spoke, his voice was small and he purposely didn’t look in Jason’s direction. “It’s... The anniversary of their death.”

He didn’t specify who, and he didn’t have to. Jason didn’t know what to say. He felt like saying he was sorry was something Nico didn’t want to hear for the millionth time, so he out that option aside.

He didn’t know how comfortable Nico would be with him asking questions but he figured letting him talk about it without the the awkward feeling of pity hanging in the air was his best option.

“Do you want to spend Thanksgiving with your dad?”

Nico shook his head and, for a moment, Jason wondered if he was denying his thoughts or answering his question. Maybe both.

“No, I don’t.” Nico turned to face him, his annoyance dissolving into the slightest hint of anger and stoicism. “I want him to acknowledge that this happened. I want him to _talk_ about my mother. And my sister.”

Jason gave him a short nod. He understood that to some extent. Before he knew Thalia, before she told him all about Beryl, Jason felt the same way towards his own parents. Running from problems seemed like a universal coping mechanism. He was guilty of it too. And it didn’t make it less infuriating.

“What was her name?” He asked, his attention almost immediately broken by a scream of victory that came from the pools general direction.

“Bianca.” Nico leaned back on his chair, crossing his arms over his dark, forest green flannel as he followed the sound of the scream as well.

“I had an hamster called Bianca...” Jason replied distractedly.

He only noticed what he’d said a few seconds after the words came out of his mouth. His eyes widened and he pursed his lips before turning slowly to face the still form of Nico Di Angelo next to him.

He expected some sort of exacerbation of his already angry expression to accompany the awkward silence that settled between them but, after a few moments of blankly staring at each other, the guy just burst into laughter. Somehow, that only scared Jason more than the possible anger.

“You’re such a _dick_!” He said, mid laughter, doubled over himself on the plastic chairs.

“I’m sorry!” He tried to excuse himself, genuinely worried by Nico’s reaction to his very unnecessary over sharing. “I wasn’t paying attention!”

“Obviously.” He just continued laughing, which was making Jason smile a little at the whole thing.

“I did though...” Jason continued. “She had a bother named Bernard.”

“No!” Nico interrupted him and actually _snorted_ while laughing. It was endearing. “Somehow, I knew that was coming!”

Jason laughed with him. He couldn’t look away.

  
In the second week of November, the swim practices were closed to the public because the pavilion needed cleaning for the swimming tournament coming the following weekend. Nico casually suggested they could just meet somewhere else, which Jason immediately accepted.

They met during the usual two and a half hours of Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, right before dinner. They rendezvoused the first two times in the nearly empty University cafe. On Thursday, they met on the second floor of the library.

It was quiet, as a library should be, and Nico expressed only wanting to hog the fast Wifi to download some TV show he wanted to watch.

They ended up sharing earphones and being shushed by the surrounding occupants as they laughed a little louder than they should - which was silently - at the random videos they were watching on YouTube. 

Needless to say none of Jason’s books were opened and they had to choose to leave the site before getting politely asked to do so by the Law students two tables away.

He spent his Friday night making up for that lost time and tried to shut out Percy and Annabeth to finish a book report while they finished a banner for Percy’s competition. 

On Saturday, Nico met him and Annabeth halfway to the pool, dragging his very sleepy self behind Will Solace. He didn’t know the kid well, but he sure was enthusiastic for nine in the morning. He walked ahead with Annabeth while Nico stayed behind with Jason and shook his head disapprovingly.

They met Sally and Paul Blofis, who according to Annabeth had been saving seats for the four of them with the help of a very restless Estelle. 

Sally greeted them all with a hug, taking her time to brush Nico’s hair out of his face and comment on how much he’d grown since she had last seen him. He didn’t seem to hate it as much as one would expect.

By the end of their interaction, he had a red tinge to his cheeks and was forcefully trying to hide a smile as he nodded, between the mandatory _Thank you’_ s and _It’s nice to see you too, aunt Sally_. 

What surprised Jason the most was how good Nico was with the three year old toddler. She seemed to like him a lot. Estelle stretched her little arms for the dark haired boy almost instantly after seeing him and Nico obliged by picking her up and letting her splatter her fingers over his cheeks.

He sat with her in his lap being genuinely interested in the blabber, eyebrows furrowing and lips instinctively moving as he tried to understand exactly what the kid was on about. She pointed at the pool and he reacted accordingly with _Wow_ and _I know_ , which seemed to be the kind of response the toddler was expecting. 

It was adorable how Nico showed more emotion talking to this child in a couple of hours than he had while conversing with adults since Jason had met him. 

Was he like this with every child that crossed his path? Or did he reserve that attentive part of himself for his baby cousin? Was Nico like this with everyone once he was truly comfortable with them? 

Jason paid more attention to the cousins incomprehensible conversation than he did to the swimming competition. 

Watching Nico smile openly at Estelle filled his chest with an inexplicable tight wave of warmth he couldn’t really place. He noticed he was smiling fondly at the man when he caught Annabeth looking at him with a raised eyebrow. 

His smile dropped and he did his best to focus on his roommate’s aquatic feats, leaning back and away from the blonde’s line of sight.

Percy had the best times. New Rome won. They cheered. 

➿

  
Thanksgiving week started quicker than Jason expected. He was folding the horrible amount of clothes he had let pile up when Thalia decided to FaceTime to talk about Thanksgiving dinner.

“You have to be here early tomorrow, so you can pick up aunt May from the Home.” She sounded serious. She always was when it came to Luke’s mum.

Jason leaned over the bed to appear in the phone’s strategically place camera view, right on the corner of his headboard and the wall. One that didn’t evidently show his sister he hadn’t been doing his laundry for the good part of the last two weeks. 

“I have set five alarms on my phone _and_ Percy’s.” He assured her. “I’m not going to be late.”

“Okay... Okay, I know that. I’m sorry.” Something made a loud clicking noise on the other side of the line and she cursed under her breath. “I’m just worried. She won’t freak out if you pick her up. Since you look like him.” 

He knew it hurt her that she couldn’t have the relationship she wanted with her future mother in law, but there was nothing she could do. May Castellan recognised only a couple of people aside from her son since she’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at an early age and moved into a Residencial Home. And Jason _did_ look a lot like said son. It used to be a lot more noticeable when he was a teenager but May still called him by Luke’s name most of the time when he wasn’t present.

His future brother in law had to work holidays, at least in the morning, since he was a blue collar worker, and Jason picking up would save Thalia a lot of convincing to get her in the car.

“Noted.” He replied and peeked to his screen to see Thalia putting some dishes away on the kitchen cupboard. 

“So how’s _Uni_ going?” She cleared her throat, doing her best to casually change the subject.

She shot him a ridiculously fake smile and got one in return.

“Haha.” He offered with no enthusiasm, knowing very well she was making fun of the fact that no American called University Uni. And Jason had done it at least two times only during the current call. “It’s going fine. I’m going out tonight.”

Just then, Percy and Annabeth entered the room. They quietly said hello when they noticed he was on the phone and Jason dropped his half folded t-shirt to start looking for his AirPods, which he could never find.

A few things crossed his mind as the couple walked behind him to settle their bags on the end of Percy’s bed. The most important being that knew where the conversation would end up as soon as he told his sister he was planning on going out. He realised he should have specifically said he was going out _to Leo’s_ with the rest of his group of guy friends. But he didn’t, leaving space for a lot of avoidable questions. 

“ _Oooh_.” Thalia’s voice echoed through the room and he could almost feel the vibration on his skin, like the warning wave of radiation before the mushroom cloud expands when a nuclear bomb goes off. 

It gave him a few seconds before said cloud hit him like a brick.

He picked up the speed with which he was looking for earphones, gaining a complete disregard for his already folded clothes as he thought of the possibility of the small box being under the pile of clothes neatly set on his duvet. But he was too late, even when he gave up and tried to reach for his phone to take it off speaker instead.

“Did you finally ask that boy out?” Thalia continued.

There it was. Bomb exploded. City eradicated. The damage was done and the only thing he could do was accept that he was now openly bisexual to four people, opposed to the brilliant zero count he had going just a month earlier.

Jason gasped, letting out the trapped air in his throat as he fell belly first on his bed, like he’d been stabbed in the back or something. He didn’t know if he’d rather be stabbed, quite honestly. A load of times.

“...Jason?” 

He reached for his phone and held it in front of his face, his nose occupying most of the image on his sister’s screen as he lowered his voice like it would make any difference. “No... I’ll talk to you tomorrow morning, _mkay_?” 

“Ah... Sure. See ya, Buba.” Something must have clicked on Thalia’s head because she nodded with an amused smile. “ _Bye_ Perseus.”

Percy didn’t reply. 

The end of call tone sounded in the silence of the room. Jason took a breath before sitting up on his bed, smiling awkwardly at the couple that was staring down at him. They had froze, Annabeth’s hand still holding the loose strap of her purse as she looked at her boyfriend. He stared back at her with the sleeve of his varsity jacket halfway down his arm.

“Hey...” Jason greeted, now that he was no longer talking to his sister. It didn’t sound natural at all. It sounded exactly like he’d been caught doing something he didn’t want to make public knowledge.

He got no response from either of them, at first. Not a verbal one at least. 

He first studied Annabeth. She now watched him with intelligent eyes and a perceptive smile he realised was only fun to see when directed at others. She always looked like she knew something others didn’t. And it was probably true. He wasn’t going to ask what that valuable piece of information was when it was her playing hand against him.

Then he shifted his gaze to Percy, who has fixed his gaze on Jason with a child like smile that was pretty standard, yet unnerving. Was he excited? Jason didn’t know what exactly was so interesting about the situation apart from the transparent feeling of panic still hanging on his breaths. 

Was it the fact that he was already interested in someone else, according to his sister, or the fact that it was not a woman?

“Is this why you didn’t want to kiss me to get those expensive bottles of vodka last year?” 

Jason laughed.

He was a little surprised that that was what came out of Percy’s mouth but, really, he shouldn’t have expected anything serious from him. 

In his first year, Percy had taken Jason under his Delta Nu wing. They had become friends quickly and attended most Greek parties together, even beyond their sense of obligation towards the organisation.

In one of the Sorority parties, someone challenged the pledges to do something for the valuable prize of two Crystal Head Vodka bottles. It was something as ridiculous as having two people of the same gender make out for a while for the crowd’s entertainment, which the girls did with no hesitation. If no one opposed them, they’d get the two bottles.

The Delta Nu group of pledges, as statistically unlikely as it sounds, were all straight guys with apparently very low tolerance for *kissing their bros*, as one had loudly expressed.

Jason tried to pass a comment about their lack of confidence in their sexuality under the rug, but Percy heard him and called Sparky to the podium to go against the girls. 

Jason had almost quiet the Greek life that day. He didn’t particularly want to know what it was like to kiss a good friend. But the empty Crystal bottle on their nightstand told another story.

And, now that he thought about it, he’d crossed two good friends off the no kissing list. He was starting to believe he couldn’t really argue with Leo when he said Jason had _absolutely_ no self control.

“But he did. I know. I specifically remember not being consulted about it, only informed.” Annabeth said, sitting on the corner of Percy’s mattress.

“Would you have told me I couldn’t kiss a dude?” Percy looked back at her, a little offence in his voice. “ _This_ dude?”

“Of course not, honey.” She smiled up at him, the poise she sat with resembling the British Royal family. “But maybe I’d tell you to ask the _dude_.”

He hummed, sitting in the small space between Jason and the pile of disrupted fabric on his bed.

“So huh... I didn’t know you were into guys, of course.” He clapped his hands on both his knees simultaneously, discomfort obvious in his stance. “I thought you were pretty confident in your heterosexuality to make out with a fine man like me, I’m sorry if I pushed you into an uncomfortable situation and shit.”

Jason nodded with a smile and a light roll of his eyes. “I forgive you if you stop acting like an idiot.”

“My Coach said that the best way to keep one’s word is to not give it so... Ya’ know... No guarantees.” Percy tapped him on the back and smiled at his girlfriend, who was watching them with intent.

He didn’t like it when Annabeth was this quiet and just let Percy ramble. The guy had no idea when to stop talking. Jason pinned it on being too genuine, wanting people to know exactly how he felt and why. Percy ended up tripping over his words, his thoughts a lot faster than the speed his voice could achieve. 

Also, he knew ADHD didn’t help his case.

“So, who’s this guy you’ve told Thalia about but not me?” He asked, inspecting one of Jason’s unfolded patterned shirts and pretending he had gained a sudden interest on the small wrinkles of the cotton. “I mean, I’m not hurt or anything!”

Jason nodded along as he talked, faked concern splattered across his face to match his overplayed sadness.

“Here a guy is worrying about your break up and you don’t even tell me you’re already playing the field...” Percy continued over the quiet chuckles of his girlfriend. “And for a different *team*, too!” 

Jason chuckled and took the crumpled fabric of one of his favourite shirts from his roommate’s hands. “Hush, Jackson.”

“Perce, babe? Didn’t you have to shower before going to Leo’s?” Annabeth offered, obviously emphasising Jason’s sentiment.

“Fine.” Percy said, a few seconds after his insulted expression faded. He didn’t sound too happy to comply. 

He used Jason’s shoulder as leverage to propel himself off the bed and marched off to the small bathroom at the entrance of the room. “Don’t miss me too much.”

Annabeth smiled, eyes lingering on the bathroom door as it closed.

Jason was already folding his shirt against his own torso, smiling to himself. 

He had watched Annabeth and Percy for more than a year now and he couldn’t believe people like them existed. 

He could only hope he’d have someone look at him the way they looked at each other. They acted like an extension of each other without being overly codependent, like some people in love could be.

It was obvious their arguments, as serious as they were, always had the goal of reaching a middle ground and never mutual destruction. They couldn’t live without one another.

Jason had grown up surrounded by political relationships and loveless marriages. He understood the misfortunes of romantic love better than he understood the feeling itself. He hated it. And, as he grew up, he hated to find out that cheating and dishonesty was the rule in the world.

He liked seeing people like those two. Like his sister and Luke. People who were happy and comfortable with their somewhat humdrum lives and didn’t stir up unnecessary negative excitement. 

“I see you, Jason Grace.” she said softly, after a long moment of silence, and he realised she’d been watching him peacefully crease the sleeves of his t-shirts.

He looked up at her and, in all honesty, he didn’t know what to respond to that. 

Annabeth saw everyone and everything. And, worse than that, she didn’t forget what she saw. If the blonde made sure to let you know she _saw_ you, she definitely had some dirt on you. And she didn’t want people to know she did as threat. It was usually a wake up call for her friends to get their lives in check.

Jason hummed and set a t-shirt aside to pull a hoodie over his legs, which he was using as the close-enough-flat surface he needed to slowly and neatly get rid of the laundry pile. 

“I know.”

“Good.” She pulled a book from her bag and opened it with a content sigh. “Then use it.”

Jason kept staring at her short offer and he didn’t know what she meant. Was she offering her help? Advice? A shoulder to cry on? By the way her eyes smiled at him over the rim of the book, his bet was on _All Of The Above_.

  
➿

  
Jason regretted making friends with Octavian two seconds after he introduced himself.

He couldn’t even call it a full pledged friendship because he kind of hated the man more than he let on. The feeling seemed to be anything but mutual and he didn’t have the heart to tell his fellow compatriot to stop nagging him.

Octavian sat next to him in their _Methods of Comparative Literature_ lecture in Jason’s first year and he’d asked to borrow a pen. There was a loud gasp and a quiet _You’re English too!?_ and he never shut up since.

Somehow, he ended up showing up at most of the boys’ gatherings even without being invited. Jason thought he knew his planner better than himself sometimes, and he was pretty sure Octavian had taken up a few of the same courses Jason had in his second year. 

He could see how his _Greek_ class was relevant for the man’s _Public Relations_ degree, but there was no way he needed _The Greek World: Greece in the Making_ or _The Rise of Rome_ to be the aspiring politician he wanted to be. And he said he was taking _Gender and Culture_ because he was a man of taste, which Jason didn’t really understand.

At the end of the day, he sat next to Octavian in a lot of lectures. And it was hard to ask someone not to sit in a specific place in school without sounding like an arse. Unless you were Nico Di Angelo and we’re perfectly comfortable kicking a guy out of his chair because you have a preference.

Jason pinned this behaviour down to the guy not having a lot of friends and even his mates from his many Clubs not wanting to hang out with him. 

He had also considered that he might just be a spy for his mother, who would, with almost ninety percent of certainty, pay someone to make sure Jason was keeping in line. Especially when he went to a University that wasn’t anywhere near her choice of higher education.

Sitting in the backyard garden furniture of The Argo, Jason winced. His family was too messed up for him to think about it a couple of weeks before having to actually deal with them all together.

He concluded Octavian scared him a little bit. He could be very intense. 

A perfect example of that was the ridiculous discussion he had with Leo while they ate their take out.

“What kind of lunatic draws an _X_ by finishing on the left side!” Octavian screamed at Leo.

He was standing on the lawn, the rest of the group comfortably sitting with their respective burger meals, watching the most pointless argument they had ever watched. 

Jason’s best friend was sitting on the corner of the palette couch, lazily leaned back and with his feet up on the cushions, hand holding his ankle in place and watching Octavian with uncharacteristic apathy.

“I don’t know, man... People who don’t have a stick up their ass?” He ventured, waving his hand. 

Nico, who was balancing the box of his chicken nuggets on his knees next to Jason, snorted quietly and took a bite. He exchanged a look with Will, who was sitting on the floor in front of him, and looked just as amused by the topic of conversation as his roommate.

“Leonidas, how do _you_ draw an _X_?” Octavian seemed about ready to pull out a chalk board and spend the rest of the night trying to prove his point.

“I don’now...” Leo shrugged, cheek pressed against the cold glass surface of his beer bottle. “Like this?”

He gestured with his index finger in the air as Percy looked from him to Octavian, eating chips like one eats popcorn in the cinema. The blond guy frowned.

“That’s how I said it’s the rational way!” He refuted, hands flying to his hips. “Why are you still _fighting_ me on this?”

“Because Frank and I bet twenty bucks I could make the red blush on your neck go all the way up to your ears.” Leo pointed at his own extended neck in demonstration, making him look a lot more smug than he was trying to sound.

A groan reverberated from Octavian’s throat before he took the defeat and just walked into the house.

The group chuckled, a few boys shaking their heads.

They’d made a couple of additions to the crew, which was good. Otherwise it would’ve been just Leo, Percy and Jason dealing with Octavian’s outbursts. They had Grover in the previous year, Percy’s best friend, who mostly smoked his grass and looked at Octavian in confusion anytime he opened his mouth.

They had Nico and Will now, who seemed to be a lot more comfortable with the group dynamic than they were at first. Especially Nico.

They also had kind of adopted this Canadian kid, Frank Zhang, who had been following Reyna around since the beginning of the year. He was a really nice guy. Looked like a body builder but his facial expression read _overgrown baby_ more than anything else. 

Frank wanted to be a judge and, as much as they saw him like a child and Reyna’s little helper, he was a very good mediator with his laid back personality and his military family poise. 

“My father is a General and my mom is a Chief Warrant Officer.” He had told them once, proudly. “Fighting is a whole different experience in my house.”

And Jason could easily believe that. He didn’t fight a lot with his mother but with Thalia... It was a mess. In the beginning he’d just comply with whatever ridiculous notion she would throw at him but after a while, Jason started arguing back.

His sister had once broke a plate by how hard she stabbed her knife into her beef while having an argument about whether he could or could not go out on New Year’s Eve. And Jason had called her a clown, which earned him a well deserved week of extra house chores and no going out _at all_.

It was screaming and breaking things and talking over each other like their lives depended on it. Followed by a long time of trying to make up for the bad things they’d said with little actions that apologised without verbally doing so, like the stubborn idiots they were.

Overall, everyone was more or less content with the new crew of the stationary Argo II.

Jason was a little disconnected from the parallel conversations going on around him, focusing on the chips he had placed on the open lid of his hamburger box. He was horribly aware of the warmth of Nico’s body next to him because, usually, the guy made an effort to keep his distance. He guessed the sitting space wasn’t that vast that he could maintain that constant.

That’s what Jason believed, at least. 

The chatter continued. They ate and drank, played charades with someone’s phone for a while before Percy and Will got into an actual physics play fight - that Will, who had two older brothers, was winning - and rolled on the poorly illuminated lawn. 

Octavian came in and out of the house because he had apparently settled watching a game of Cricket on the living room flat screen.

Frank and Leo talked about some girl they knew from the Kappa Theta Phi who was giving one of them grief, even though Jason didn’t really understand exactly which one since he wasn’t paying full attention.

And he just sat quietly on his corner of the sofa with Nico still sitting close to him even though he had a full sitting space next to him on the cushion.

He noticed him looking at Jason a few times, like he wanted to ask him something but regretted it at the last second. Jason didn’t know why he was so uncomfortable engaging in conversation with him with chaos around them. 

He knew why _he_ was making a special effort to be quiet and it had half to do with his incoherent and messy thoughts and half with the keen eyes of Percy Jackson, who he was sure wasn’t as _dumb_ as people painted him to be. He just needed to have all the pieces of the puzzle. Which Thalia had given him.

He smiled distractedly at Leo and Frank’s complaints over the faint groans and laughter of the fight going on nearby and the music coming from the strategically placed speaker, looking up from rearranging the dinner he was no longer going to eat to address the clear mention of his name from the other corner of the sofa.

“Grace, stop daydreaming and help me take the trash inside.” Leo snapped at him as he threw him a crumpled paper bag, which he deflected with his forearm.

He looked over his raised elbow to see his best friend smirking at him. Jason was ready to throw something at him too when Nico smiled at him and tapped him on the knee. “Come on, I’ll help too.” 

He then pushed himself up to grab a few of the paper bags and stuff them with lost wrappers and napkins while Jason and Leo grabbed the empty beer bottles from the wooden deck to slowly walk into the kitchen.

Jason blinked the buzz out of his eyes as he stood up. Drinking while not moving at all was always a mistake. He wasn’t drunk but he was on the right path to be, so he made a mental note to change to Coke in his next drink.

He had a rough week and he was tired, which probably wasn’t helping his tolerance to the social drinking as much as his usually enthusiasm did.

Leo opened a plastic bag for Nico to put the garbage in while Jason placed the empty bottles on the island counter to look for a a box to put them in.

“You two idiots sort out the recycling, I’m going to get the rest of the bottles.” Leo announced before leaving the kitchen.

Jason heard him converse with the rest of the guys outside while he tried to rebuild a dismantled cardboard box to put the glass bottles in.

“This is nice...” Nico said in a low voice, looking at the open door to the garden with a content expression.

Jason hummed in response, smiling as he watched him admit he was having a good time with more than two people present. It definitely something to celebrate, coming from Nico.

He thought to himself how he looked so much better when he wasn’t trying so hard to be unapproachable. His constantly heavy brow was softer, his dark circles weren’t as noticeable with his smile pushing his cheeks slightly into the empty space. Maybe Jason hadn’t noticed before Halloween, maybe it wasn’t there before, but his hair had started curling up around his ears and almost imitating the head of curly hair he’d spotted that night.

Nico turned his head to face him when Jason didn’t say anything apart from his small sound of agreement. Jason rotated the neck of a bottle between the fingers of his right hand, smiling back at him. 

His eyes trailed over Nico’s already small smile as it slowly faded before inspecting the question mark in his eyes. 

Jason took a deep breath as Leo’s steps sounded in the linoleum and Nico quickly turned away to face the other side of the kitchen.

What in the world was _that_ about? 

“There was only one left, anyway.” Leo said casually. “Catch.”

It took him a second too many to realise his best friend was talking to him. Jason lift his hand instinctively to catch the new bottle, and he would have, if it weren’t for two defining factors. First, he was already holding a bottle in his dominant hand, which meant the likelihood of catching another one was next to nonexistent. Secondly, on the way up, said bottle hit the marble counter and shattered in his hand, followed by the shattering sound of the second bottle as it smashing itself on the very same counter. 

In the counter’s defence, it was already there when that train of stupid decisions was made. On Leo’s defence...

“What the _fuck_!” 

Leo has both his hands up as high as his eyebrows, but his face still told Jason he was a little bit amused by the ordeal. 

“Oh-...” He repressed a laugh. “No, _not_ funny.” 

But his shoulders were bobbing anyway. 

Jason looked down at his hand as he stretched his fingers for the broken glass to fall on the marble surface, tainted red by his blood. There sure was a lot of it for a hand injury. 

Leo made a gagging sound and covered his mouth with his hands. “Oh no, Leo doesn’t do blood. Do we need to go the hospital!?” 

Nico grabbed Jason’s hand, to which he responded by opening his mouth in a demonstration of pain. It was ignored.

“He doesn’t need to go to a hospital, dumbass.” Nico forcefully pulled Jason’s hand to the sink behind them and clicked the faucet open. “Do you have a first aid kid?”

Leo looked up in thought before starting to nod rapidly. “Yeah. Yep, sure do.” 

He started backing away to the living room door and Jason followed him with his gaze. It only seemed to bring the giggles back as quickly as they had disappeared. 

“Run, Valdez!” Jason warned, and his friend did.

“Oh shut up, Sparky. It’s just a cut.” Nico said, unimpressed, as he moved Jason’s hand under the water and tried to inspect the wound across his palm.

Jason chuckled at the remark, not surprised Nico’s intervention was telling him to stop being a baby. Mostly.

He looked away from his own hand, looking down at an endless pool of black hair. 

Nico was at least ten centimetres shorter than him, which meant the top of his head reached only the bridge of Jason’s nose. 

He had never been so close - this _close_ \- that he could smell his shampoo. He didn’t know what he had expected but he was surprised when the faint hints of lemon filled his nostrils as he inhaled, his exhaled staggered by an attempt at controlling the amount of hair he actually released through his parted lips.

He tilted his head slightly, the corner of his own lips turning in an admiring curl as he watched Nico softly roll his thumb over Jason’s palm. He assumed he was trying to identify any lost glass and help the water pressure wash it away. 

He was worried about him. That selfishly and stupidly made Jason a little happier.

Nico licked his bottom lip before lightly biting down on his, focused on the task at hand. Jason’s eyes lingered over the rosy patch of skin, taking a breath through his mouth as he tried to calm the sudden need for oxygen that grew in the base of his chest and pushed tightly into his abdomen.

He knew that was not what going to shut his thoughts up or what was going to fill the void in his lungs or muffle the sound of his rapidly beating heart. 

Jason’s gaze followed the path on Nico’s skin he quietly imagined tracing with his lips, following the line of freckled dots that casually marked the soft line of his jaw and disappeared into his shirt collar. 

As he looked back up, Nico was staring back at him, his breath hitting Jason’s chin as he watched him. 

“...What?” He asked quietly.

He jumped from his dark brown eyes to watching his mouth move nervously and he couldn’t bring himself to look away. Jason swallowed, relieving his dry throat as he made another attempt at looking Nico in the eyes.

How long had Leo been gone already? Was it long enough that he was on the verge of coming back or did Jason’s mind drag only a few seconds of time into long, longing minutes? 

Had Jason seen Nico’s gaze drop momentarily or was he seeing what he wanted to see?

Was Jason just ruining everything by being overly fixated on kissing a boy he didn’t even know wanted to be kissed by other boys, much less himself specifically?

He liked Nico. He didn’t know if he wanted to throw it all out the window for what might very well be just one moment of idiocy.

But the more he thought about it, the less he cared about being _that_ idiot. 

He has completely given up on fighting the thoughts that were coursing through him, tingling at the tips of his fingers and lifting the hairs on the back of his neck as they made their way down his spine like the urgent need to move.

Next thing he knew, he’d closed the space between them by urging his head forward through that short space, pressing his lips against Nico’s beer tainted mouth as he inhaled the fulfilling breath he so desperately needed.

At first, there was nothing but a faint whimper that discouraged Jason and prepared him to retreat. But soon enough, Nico’s mouth moved in response, brushing against his lips innocently, a slow and soft pressure eagerly reciprocated.

It was short and sweet and he felt breathless, not from the kiss, but from the strength it had taken him to pull away before he lost all sense of his surroundings. 

There was some relief in hearing Leo’s shoes screech on the wooden floor of the living room, knowing he hadn’t just been there watching Jason possibly make a fool out of himself. But not even the knowledge that his best friend was about the cross the doorframe into the kitchen was enough to make him look away from the new shade of pink across Nico’s cheeks. His expression was unreadable and it started to register itself in the back of Jason’s mind as a reason to worry.

“So do you think any of these are usable if they’re _waaaay_ beyond their expiry date?” Leo asked, jiggling a white box in front of his face.

Nico cleared his throat and shook the water out of his hand before turning off the tap and walking over to Leo. 

He spoke, but Jason didn’t listen, eyes still fixed on the space he had occupied a few seconds before and bleeding hand hanging loosely in the sink.

_Fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry if it’s a bit of a mess, I wanted to say a lot from Jason’s perspective to get to this exact point. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it nonetheless!
> 
> Also excuse my jumping from UK English to America English but my dictionary doesn’t like change.
> 
> I try to make Jason’s chapters a little more British but it’s hard.
> 
> See ya on the next one!


	6. Nico (Week 7 - Sweater Weather)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanksgiving can be troublesome, for some more than others.

_“Baby, you're like lightning in a bottle_  
_I can't let you go now that I got it.”_

_Børns -_

It was the strangest mix of emotions Nico had ever felt.

He lied on the open sofa bed, staring at the lights from the TV dancing in the ceiling of Sally Jackson’s living room. 

His phone rested against the bony center of his chest, palm covering the majority of it as his index finger lightly tapped the silicone case. 

His stomach was full and that laced him with a comfortable feeling, a slackness and lack of muscle tone that one experienced before falling into a deep sleep. But that was the one thing he couldn’t do.

Nico kept smiling at the blue and white reflections of a _Who Wants to Be a Millionaire_ rerun, muted so that it didn’t disturb anyone in the household. Just because Nico couldn’t sleep it didn’t mean others couldn’t.

He kept reliving the events of the previous night, the previous weeks even, and he had this stupid grin forcing its way into his lips more often than he wanted it to. Even being alone, he felt the urge to hide his face under the heavy blanket in his makeshift bed to hide his inexplicable embarrassment.

_I like you, Nico._

How many times had he heard that, followed by the low chuckle of a glittering boy showered in moonlight?

How many times had Nico questioned the decision he’d made on telling Jason about his best kept secret? And he didn’t even consider he’d just be coming out to this guy by telling him he had a huge crush on his own cousin. No. He was just trying to make him feel better, relate to him. And eye for an eye, _we’re all human_ , blah blah blah. 

Was that the dam opening cataclysm that led to Jason _kissing_ him? Had he even though about it before Halloween? Did Nico? 

Did Jason even remember half of what they’d talked on the Chapter House’s roof? Maybe when you’re ready to fearlessly and idiotically walk on a ledge you’re already too gone to retain any information.

Nico lift his phone to stare at the open text message he had gotten shortly after dinner. 

He had a fantastic day with the Jacksons, against all his predictions and, apart from missing his little sister - and his older one, too - he wouldn’t mind spending every Holiday in the small living room of the Upper East Side apartment.

He was closer to Sally than her sister, who he lived with, and he sometimes wondered if that bothered Kara at all. He didn’t think so. 

Kara and Sally shared a father but their maternal figures had been very different. Sally’s must have been an angel of a woman while Kara’s was inexplicably vile. Nico had the _pleasure_ of dealing with her every summer, when she came out of her hibernation in North America to disrupt the Di Angelo household. 

She was part of the reason Nico preferred to stay at home with their Housekeeper, opposed to tagging along every single beach trip Kara organised.

The biggest loss, if Kara and his dad ever decided to part ways, would be his stepmother’s paternal side of the family. Hopefully that wouldn’t happen.

As celebrated, didn’t expect anyone to recognise a holiday dedicated to give thanks as the death anniversary of the two most important people in his life. He didn’t expect anyone to remember or even have the knowledge that, eight years prior, Nico was lying in a hospital bed blaming himself for something that he now knew was beyond his control. 

He didn’t expect their mother and sister to be mentioned at all. He knew he wouldn’t hear a word from his father and he didn’t speak to his Italian uncles so, as it always had been, Nico was ready to be alone in his grief.

And yet, there it was, lightening the tip of his nose on the unlocked screen of his phone:

**> > I hope you had a good day, given the circumstances. I’m sure, if they were here, your mum and Bianca would be thankful for you. I know I am.**

**> > PS: I’m sorry if I crossed a line. Happy Thanksgiving.**

Nico didn’t reply, mostly because he didn’t know what to say.

Was he referring to the text or to the kiss? Nico groaned and threw the phone of the slim mattress, as far away from him as physically possible. 

The whole situation couldn’t be as complicated as either of them were making it. He knew that. And yet, he still felt like he was trapped in a limbo he wasn’t getting out of any time soon. Somehow, he felt like this would the extent of Jason bringing up the fact that he kissed him, if that was even what that was about, and Nico was definitely too much of a coward to confront him about it.

Hopefully, it would happen again.

Another groan, this one followed by a small laugh as the image of kissing Jason again crossed his mind.

That was the last thing he thought before he fell asleep.

  
The rest of the weekend was as peaceful as Thanksgiving day. 

They travelled to Long Island on the Friday. Paul and Sally rented a cabin in Montauk, right by the beach. Nico questioned the premise of spending a weekend in November by the beach but the only answer he got was _S’mores_.

Percy took the Saturday to visit his best friend, taking Paul’s car and leaving the rest of them stranded on the beach cabin. He asked if Nico wanted to tag along but he chose not to be the third wheel in what would probably be a very emotional reunion. 

He’d heard Jason talk about how Grover and Percy acted like conjoined twins, to the point where they almost always knew what the other was thinking. Nico could feel the light tinge of jealousy in his voice whenever Jason spoke of Grover, and he wondered what was the essence of it.

There were a lot of things he wanted to explore with Jason, and the root of most of his negative feelings was maybe the more pressing subject for him.

He never heard him verbalise just how much he disliked someone or how much he wanted something in his life to be radically different from what it was. Not like he heard him talk about his sister. He was so real, so _raw_. It was like Nico could see through the perfect mask his mother had groomed for him. And even then, he never blamed either of them for feeling so detached from his sister. 

Jason had refused to talk about Piper when he was asked. Nico had heard from Will, who passively participated in the Frat gossip, that she had broken up with him. Through text. And Nico had heard guys badmouth their exes for much less. 

Nico knew Octavian drove Jason insane, he could feel him tense up the moment he heard the annoying high pitched sound he claimed as a voice, and yet he had never been less than polite to the guy. He didn’t even participate in the constant jokes Leo and Percy threw around whenever Octavian came around. 

And he claimed Leo was his best friend when in fact, everyone could see Reyna Arellano occupied the first place in the podium and the only person who kept denying that was Jason himself. Nico knew this because he watched them, like he watched everyone, and he could see that typical silent understanding and complicity that people shared when they were so close they felt like the other was an extension of themselves. That kind of bond only seemed to develop when people were _really_ good friends or when they were having sex. 

He guessed Jason and Reyna were both, at some point? Nico hadn’t decided if the conversation he’d walked into the first day he had visited The Argo was just friendly banter between Leo and his proclaimed best friend or if something had actually happened. And he didn’t think it was his place to ask. 

Nico was lying comfortably in the silence of the couch when Percy quietly tiptoed inside the cabin. He hit his knee on the small entrance table and cursed under his breath. When Nico huffed, his cousin pointed his phone screen in the direction of the noise and his shoulders slumped.

“Shut it, Hyacinthus.” He whispered, carefully taking off his shoes so he wouldn’t wake up his mom.

It was a few minutes past midnight and way past Estelle’s bedtime.

“You know, the door is closed and I do have access to a lamp.” Nico offered and was almost immediately hit in the face by the hoodie Percy had hastily pulled through his head.

Nico clicked the side table’s small lamp on and saw Percy throw his jeans on the unoccupied armchair in the corner of the room. His cousin skipped up to the couch and lift the blankets Nico had carefully tucked around him for maximum warmth, which made him gasp in offence.

“Oh _shush_. And scooch.” Percy sat down on the sofa bed.

“You have your own bed!” Nico complained as he complied anyway and slid himself slightly to the side.

Percy smiled as he made himself comfortable under the blankets, resting his head on the corner of Nico’s pillow seemingly very content with what he’d just done.

“But this one is already warm and cozy.” He reached over Nico’s head to turn off the light and quickly put his bare arm back under the warmth of the covers. “Plus, I’m sad and I’m too hold to go sleep with my mom...”

Nico chuckled. He one hundred percent believed that was exactly what his cousin wanted to do, and he didn’t blame him. He would probably be feeling just as down if he had to visit Will once in a few months instead of seeing him almost every day.

As surprising as it was, Nico didn’t feel as uncomfortable as he thought he would for having Percy lie in bed with him, his cold feet seeking warmth in Nico’s pyjama covered calves. It was intimate, but not one bit arousing for him. 

He was happy the light was off and he didn’t have to hide the immense relief from those curious green eyes.

“How’s Grover?”

“He has a girlfriend now.” Percy replied, his sigh ricocheting in Nico’s cheek. 

With a smile in his voice, Nico whispered. “So do you.”

“Its different!” Percy complained. “It’s _Grover_. And I can’t even hate her, she’s so nice! It’s unreal.”

“So you act like it’s the end of the world instead.” 

“The world as I _knew_ it.” Percy kicked him lightly for making fun of his dramatic take on the expected event of his friend’s life.

Nico could sense the complaints were light hearted and he was just sad he had to go back to a life without Grover and his new girlfriend, who Percy continued on rambling about. He didn’t know if he was trying to sell Juniper (a name Nico tried not to laugh at, with difficulty, because the fact that Percy’s vegan, nature activist best friend ended up with a girlfriend named after a plant _was_ funny) to Nico or himself.

He continued talking and Nico was almost lulled to sleep by his voice when Percy paused, changing the subject.

“You’re different with me.” He whispered, adjusting his head on Nico’s pillow to take up a little more space. “I like it... I like having a cousin. If feels nice not to be the only Jackson kid my age.”

Nico offered a sleepy laugh, eyes still closed in hopes he wouldn’t wake himself up enough to spend a sleepless night next to a snoring Percy. “Technically, you are...”

“No, we adopted you, you’re one of us now. We don’t do refunds.” He paused again, for such a long time Nico almost forgot they were having a conversation by the time he continued talking. “So, what changed?”

Nico frowned in his half asleep state, not really sure what he wanted as an answer. “My dad married your aunt?”

Percy laughed and he could feel the movement of the pillow as he shook his head. “No, genius. With you.”

Nico opened his eyes to the darkness, only able to lightly see his cousin’s silhouette in the shadows. The lack of detail made him blink, pulling him out of his comfortable somnolent state just enough to strain his brain into thinking of an answer. 

He had a few options and one of them was to pretend he was asleep. That seemed like the most viable option to him. Then he had _lying_ , which was a strong runner up, and the dreaded _truth_. 

Except he didn’t fear it that much that he felt like speaking it would break him, like he had for years. He felt like he knew enough about Percy to know that telling him he used to find him impossibly attractive - which he still did, it just didn’t mean he wanted to _climb him like a tree_ anymore, as Will would say - wouldn’t make him act any differently towards him. At least not in a negative way.

He took a deep breath, hoping maybe Percy had fallen asleep while he thought of his answer. “I’m gay.” He gave it a couple of seconds in case his cousin wanted to add anything. “I used to have a crush on you... And I don’t anymore. I guess you’re no longer my type.”

It wasn’t entirely true. Percy was a very handsome guy. Anyone who wasn’t at least a little attracted to him certainly didn’t like men.

He heard a soft gasp next to him that made his whole body stiffen in fear. Maybe he’d misjudged Percy. Maybe he should have just kept his mouth shut. He took a deep breath, filled with the will to curse out loud with the next exhale. But Percy was faster.

“First of _all_...” he started, shifting his weight into his elbow which made the mattress tip in his direction. “Thanks for telling me.”

“You’re wel-” Nico started, in his confusion, but was interrupted.

“Second of all!...” Percy continued in a hushed voice. “ _Blondes_ , am I right?”

Nico exhaled loudly, relieved, and kicked Percy’s legs away to show how annoyed he was at his misleading performance. They both shared throaty laughs, an attempt to keep the cackling to a minimum, and fell sleep in the comfortable silence that settled.

  
➿

  
The first week of December was as manic as University could get. 

Nico barely talked to Will. They usually found each other passed out on their own beds or running out of the door to get to some exam study group they forgot about.

Being on campus and virtually having no classes felt very disorganised for Nico. He felt like he slept in more than he should and his meals were all over the place.

He spent a long chunk of his days with Mr. Douche, who had evolved to being simply Mr. D because he was actually bearable when he wasn’t being observed by an entire auditorium of what he referred to as _prepubescent wannabe adults._ He adjusted some of his programming mistakes and revised his math, but generally he was happy with what he had achieved with Will so far.

The guy also let him use his office to make the necessary alterations to the project, a blessing Nico sometimes used to work on different essays. Mr. D pretended not to know he was abusing his space as long as he was offered a generous amount of Diet Coke.

Fast WiFi, silence and central heating for a few cans of Coke? Seemed like a deal Nico wasn’t going to pass up.

That took one of the many weights out of Nico’s shoulders and, by the end of the week, Nico felt like he had a couple of hours to take a breather and go to Percy’s swim practice. 

Jason wasn’t there.

Only then did Nico realise he had not attended two of his cousin’s practices that week, with no explanation whatsoever. And Jason didn’t say anything either. Had he not been there? Or did he decide not to try to talk to Nico after he didn’t reply on Thanksgiving?

Nico guessed he must be caught up with with his thesis and essays and long readings. Why would he come to the pool? He was busy. Nico was sure the lack of communication between them meant nothing.

The Library closed earlier on the weekends. That made no sense for Nico because most of the students preferred sacrificing a few hours of sleep on a Saturday then they did in the middle of the week. He was self inserting himself in that group of students.

He understood that the staff didn’t want to spend their weekend nights supervising a bunch of caffeine driven zombies and their disregard for mandatory literature, but he still disagreed with whoever made the decision to close the building before dinner.

Nico and Will had claimed one of the corner tables of the second floor, next to a window that let the sun warm the wooden surface of the furniture and made the environment comfortable enough for a nap. And that would have been catastrophic if they didn’t have each other to keep them on their toes. But they did and everything worked out fine. 

Halfway through a tedious reading of _Introduction to Physics_ , Nico has to pick up his phone from the table before he got singled out for making too much noise. It buzzed against the hard surface and echoed through the small section of the Library a couple of times too many. 

His roommate checked his own phone and they exchanged a look.

Leo has just added them to a group chat entitled The Argonauts and the first order of business was a summoning to his house for _good ol’ pizza_. Nico smiled when Leo confessed being tired of only having conversations with Reyna because they were running out of things to talk about. 

Nico immediately turned off the notifications for what he expected would be a ridiculous amount of messages. He didn’t like group chats and he rarely ever spoke in them unless he was directly spoken to. And even then, someone usually had to privately tell him that he was being mentioned because, as it is expected when a chat is muted, Nico forgot to check it. He figured that would be the case once again, which seemed to disappoint Will.

On one hand, at least he didn’t have to worry about dinner. On the other hand, he had to socialise with a large group of people. As much as he liked those people, it still made him a little uncomfortable to think that at any moment a dozen pairs of eyes could land on him.

He also quickly realised he’d see Jason for the first time since _it_ happened in a setting that made it almost completely impossible for them to talk. Even if they wanted to.

Nico decided against telling Will. He didn’t want someone else’s input on the matter and he knew his best friend would have plenty to say. He also knew he would meddle because it was just his nature to try and push people into happiness, like he had on Halloween and specifically chose Apollo’s most famous lover for his costume.

He wanted it to come from Jason, not Will. Even if nothing ever happened.

They were the last ones to arrive to the house and everyone was already comfortably sitting around the living room. 

Leo ran back over to the large pillow he was using as a seat between the large armchair and the coffee table. Behind him, Percy and Annabeth shared the chair while they laughed at something Frank, who was leaning over the armrest of the couch closest to them, had said. 

Next to Frank, Reyna checked her phone and had Jason peaking over her shoulder, both of them distracted in hushed chatter that was inaudible over the rest of the sounds in the room. 

The TV was on and Octavian occupied the floor on the opposite end of the coffee table, elbow comfortably resting on its surface as he watched the News on the bright screen. No one else seemed to be paying attention to that.

There were two empty seats, one right next to Jason and a dinning room chair that had probably been pulled after someone did the math and knew there would be a need for an extra seat. Will quickly crashed down on it and hit Octavian on the shoulder, greeting him with “ _Waddup_ , my man?” and pretending to be interested in the hockey results the journalist was rambling on about. 

He knew his friend had not done it on purpose. That was expected from Will, to be drawn to the person who was getting the least amount of attention in the room and try to engage in conversation. Nico knew he’d probably fall asleep to Will complaining about how Octavian was the most annoying British person he’s ever met and he wanted none of that in his life but it didn’t stop him from trying to learn more about the guy every time he was hogging the TV by himself.

Nico took off his old aviator jacket before sitting down on the sofa next to Jason. The man lift his chin from Reyna’s shoulder to look at Nico, who tried for a smile. Jason seemed relieved by that as he smiled back at him.

Nico turned his attention to the skin directly in front of him and could now hear Jason explain to Reyna why she was getting a good deal on a used Macbook Pro. She kept refuting that as a rich person, Jason had no opinion.

That was the first time he was hearing that Jason came from money. He knew he lived comfortably but Reyna made it sound like he had a swimming pool of dollar - no, _pound_ \- bills in his backyard. It made Nico laugh.

“Don’t fucking laugh at me, Di Angelo!” Reyna pointes her index finger at him. “Percy said you live in a castle too, so shut your mouth!”

Nico looked over at Percy in search of an explanation but his cousin just shrugged and shot him a sheepish smile. “You do...”

“And still manages to dress like a struggling musician...” Will muttered, eyes conveniently glued to the television. screen.

He had been to his house. Actually, Will spent more time at his house than the Solace household. He knew living with his two brothers and having to share a room with the middle one was not the ideal setting for anyone.

He found funny how Will liked walking around barefoot through the cool marble floors of the ground floor of his house. Nico hated them. He was a naturally cold person and his house, recently redecorated by his father’s young wife, was not warm or welcoming or cozy. It was empty, cold, lifeless. 

Nico spent a lot of his time in his room and very little anywhere else. He was given freedom to decorate it however he wanted it and it looked like a different dimension compared to the bright whiteness of the rest of the house.

“Hey!” Nico protested.

“I don’t think you dress like a struggling musician...” Jason whispered behind him, to which Reyna snorted and shook her head.

“What is _pfffft_ supposed to mean?” Jason asked, crossing his arms over his chest defensively.

Nico really hoped Reyna didn’t reply to his question sincerely because she was the type of person to put you on the spot when you asked these kinds of questions. And Jason had just given her a great opportunity to call him out and she opened her mouth like that was exactly what she was about to do.

He didn’t know if it was the way Nico looked at her in a small amount of panic or the fact that Jason actually looked genuinely confused that made her back away from her instinctive response.

“Nothing.” She shrugged. “You have a horrible sense of fashion.”

“You wear gym clothes with blazers.” Jason offered.

“And what about it?” 

They kept arguing about each other’s wardrobe while the conversations around them resumed and Nico just joined Will and Octavian on watching the News, even thought he wasn’t paying much attention.

At least it looked like he was going to be able to have a normal night with his friends instead of having to tiptoe around Jason like he thought he couldn’t have to. 

It wasn’t awkward. Or maybe he had thought it too soon.

“Okay guys, settle down!” Leo stood up from his seat on the floor, clapping his hands to make himself heard. “I have something to say. And let’s pretend I’m holding a figurative Talking Stick and your only job is to listen to me until I’m finished.”

“We’ll be here all night...” Percy joked, leaning over to bump fists with Frank as they both chuckled.

Leo reached over to slap Percy over the head, which his cousin tried to dodge but ended up just looking at Leo in offence when his hand loudly collided with his skull.

“Talking Stick.” Leo repeated before sighing and getting ready to continue. “I invited Piper.”

There was a collective uncomfortable shuffling around him that made the hair in his forearms raise. These people were so dramatic. By the way they reacted to the news, they made it sound like Leo has invited a recently released murderer into his house.

Besides, Nico didn’t know what the big deal was because he was sure that, even if he were dying inside, Jason would still pretend that was perfectly fine with him.

Everyone was looking at the blond, so Nico refrained from doing the same and just stared at the carpeted floor between his feet.

“Okay. Good.” Leo seemed happy no one had actually said something. “I’m sick of having to see her outside of this lovely group of people and she misses you guys too, so...”

Leo clapped once as he looked at Jason and shrugged, as if saying _Tough luck, buddy._ “You’re gonna have to a _Ross and Rachel_ it. It’s been three months. You even had sex after that. Move on.”

At this, Jason sat himself up. He looked more worried about this revelation than the fact that Piper was going to have dinner with them.

“You had what!?” Annabeth almost fell off Percy’s lap as he excitedly opened his mouth at his roommate.

“Drop it.” Jason asked, but that just peaked Percy’s interest even more.

He gasped loudly and looked at Leo. “Do you know who it was?”

Leo rolled his eyes as he sat back down. “Yes.”

“Rude!” Percy threw the pillow behind him at Jason and hit Nico instead. “I’ll get it out of you, you dog.”

Nico held the pillow against his chest before Jason had the chance to snatch it from him and propel it back in Percy’s direction.

He, of course, knew exactly why Jason was so flustered about it being known he had sex after breaking up with Piper. He had confessed before he was not the type of guy to sleep around. And, after that overheard conversation he remembered as the day he found Jason elbows deep in a bowl of barbecue meat, he had now confirmed that the guy had really slept with Reyna.

She winked at Nico when she realised his mind was probably connecting the dots all the way back to their first meeting and he smiled at her.

He put aside how desperately infatuated he was with Jason as he thought that was not the night to bring that up. He had enough on his plate.

Even without Nico, there was a room full of people who could easily make the evening a lot more uncomfortable for Jason than it had to be.

And, for just a second, he almost felt bad for Piper McLean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit of a crack chapter. I want to write the next bit from Jason’s POV so have this little update.
> 
> You’ll notice Jason comes a lot easier to me than Nico. But I’m doing my best not to sound like a complete crackhead with Nico’s perception of people.
> 
> Sorry I’m not answering your comments but I’m reading them all and you guys are all so sweet, it warms my heart.
> 
> Thank you for sticking with me even when I’m talking crazy.
> 
> Love ya, see ya on the next one :)


	7. Jason (Week 8 - Despite Blind Eyes)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beautiful thing about boys is that they’re mostly oblivious until it’s impossible not to see what’s right in front of them.

” _I could feel the tension, we could cut it with a knife_  
 _I know it's more than just a friendship, I can hear you think I'm right.”_

_Shawn Mendes -_

He had given up on studying the moment Leo created that group chat.

He followed the inflow of messages as they responded to Leo’s aggressive invitation for pizza and Jason was hoping for a certain four letter name to pop up with a reply of his own. But he lost interest when Will informed the group he and his roommate would be present for the meal. He knew Nico wasn’t going to dignify the rest of them with an answer of his own.

At least he was giving _everyone_ the silent treatment.

He was more than happy that Nico had slowly progressed from being Percy’s cousin, to Jason’s friend and then to being part of Argo’s crew. He liked having more excuses to hang out with him other than their mutual pretence of liking swimming pools.

Yes, because Jason had seen him _interested_ in things, and swim practices wouldn’t even make the list of top ten things Nico was vaguely intrigued by. And Jason wasn’t fooling anyone when he said he went to watch Percy because that hadn’t been true even before the the appearance of his cousin at New Rome.

He had only shown up at the pool once since Thanksgiving and, after the events of the previous week, his brain just went into complete overdrive anytime he thought about having to talk to Nico again. So maybe it was for the best that they didn’t cross paths Percy’s territory. 

Every single possibility crossed Jason’s mind when it came to how Nico could be feeling about his rash decision to act on his wishes. 

First, he had beaten himself up about kissing him. Maybe kissing the person that was attentively caring for your bleeding would was not his best judgement call. Maybe doing it with more doubt than certainty that said person was actually into Jason was something he should have also taken into consideration. 

Then he tried to dismiss his panic by firmly imprinting in his brain the small but very relevant fact that Nico _had_ kissed him back. So he had a little bit of hope.

Then he’d decided to send him that cursed text on Thanksgiving. He wanted to make sure Nico knew that he was listening to him. That he cared about the things he shared with him even though Jason acted like an idiot about it sometimes. 

It was a message full of good intentions and the clear implication that Jason was very sure of what he’d done. He didn’t regret it and he wasn’t going to ignore Nico until the elephant in the room got recruited into the circus or just simply flew away with a feather in its trunk. But Nico didn’t even acknowledge it.

After waiting expectantly by his phone for the entirety of his Friday, Jason concluded he would not be getting a response. He also decided that would be the extent of his attempts at communicating with Nico.

He still checked his phone every five minutes for the remainder of the holiday weekend.

Getting back to Campus was supposed to come with a panoply of distractions from the disastrous fact that Nico had continued to ignore him, reaching exactly four days of white noise from his end. But his silent phone kept pushing him into his reality of exhausting self doubt and regret.

He hadn’t been at the long course pool when Jason showed up. He didn’t show his face at the Library in any of the occasions when Jason and Annabeth his away in the Palaeontology section to study in peace, books spread on the floor around them. Nico was nowhere to be seen.

And, because he had reached a point where he started to fear his own self combustion, Jason did what was expected of him. He confided in his study buddy.

“You’re being paranoid.” She said while she carefully placed a protractor on the giant paper she had clipped to an angled desk. “He’s just busy.”

When they weren’t at the Library, they started having these conversations at the Kappa House. Those were the two places Jason knew to be safe from Percy’s eager ears.

He was familiar with Annabeth’s room. Jason had spent a grand part of his first year sitting on the pink comforter that now looked immaculately untouched across from him whenever he sat down in his assigned space. The whole area smelled of flowery fabric softener and the beds looked like they could comfortably fit Jason’s six feet, unlike his own bed back at the Chapter House. In fact, Jason knew he could have mattress space to spare in those beds, he had slept in one of them more than once.

Piper’s perfectly arranged open wardrobe stared at him as he waited for Annabeth to finish her monologues, playing her part as the voice of reason. And he couldn’t stop thinking about how weird it felt to be immersed in all things McLean again.

With that said, he expected Piper herself to walk into the room she shared with Annabeth, unannounced. It was within her right to do so and Jason couldn’t do much about it. But, unlike him, Annabeth wasn’t completely powerless in that matter and Piper never did show up.

He wasn’t so much worried that she found him there in his lightly panicked pacing, worrying about a boy who was driving him insane. And it was not that he couldn’t care _l_ _ess_ that Piper knew he was freaking out over being ghosted by Nico, but he certainly had cared _more_.

He was worried Piper would find it a violation of her privacy to have Jason visit her personal space, even it wasn’t with the intention of disturbing it. He was worried he would be crossing yet another imaginary line uninvited. But Annabeth reassured him that Piper wouldn’t be bothered by it.

Last time he’d seen her in a social setting, Jason had in no way been ready to face her. Or talk to her, for that matter. He knew he still had a lot to work out then because his drunken counterpart, who he referred to by a different name for several reasons, had not directed one word to Helen of Troy. And that was very uncharacteristic of Sparky.

How could it be that Halloween was already a month behind him?

He couldn’t believe it had been a that long since he had first thought about kissing Nico Di Angelo. Since purple had gained a different meaning in his life. Since he grew more attached to the stars.

It was even harder to believe whole week had passed since he’d made the miscalculated decision of actually kissing him. _Look how well that went._

It was troublesome that he could only remember a few glimpses of that night but it’s memory still filled him with warmth. Something about his rambling about Thalia bugged him, like there was a piece of information lost in their conversation that he should have held on to. He knew there was something that he couldn’t place, something he’d shadowed with laughter and moonlight.

It gave him a headache at times, trying to push through the unhealthy amount of drinks he’d had that night. 

All these thoughts faded when Nico took the seat next to him at The Argo, the depression in the couch cushion mimicking the jolt to his brain he felt at first contact that left his mind blank. What was Jason supposed to do? Should he greet him? Should he actively act as hurt as he felt for being ignored for a week? Should he play the same game Nico had engaged in and go radio silent? 

But Nico had smiled at him in seconds and, as a desperately infatuated idiot, he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t happy that the situation seemed brighter than he’d painted it. It was certainly one of the best options, out of the extensive repertoire of outcomes he’d written in his head.

The small gesture gave him hope for the rest of the night.

He hadn’t been expecting Leo to take that positive expectation away by making him the center of attention. 

His best friend quickly revoked his subscription to the role. Not only did he put him on the spot by announcing to the entire group that Jason’s ex girlfriend was going to join them for dinner, but he also made sure to let everyone assume he was _okay with it_ because he _had already had sex with someone else._

How could Leo self proclaim himself as either Jason or Piper’s friend when he pulled a stunt like this one?

The room was horribly quiet when the doorbell rang again and Jason tried to appear as cool as a cucumber, which was hard because his mind was split by not wanting to talk to Piper and wanting to drag Nico away so he could talk to him instead. 

But, in reality, he recently familiar banging headache was returning in full force. His palms were a little sweaty and he was focusing too much on taking deep breaths through the weight of his sweater. He fought the urge to pull it through his head and run out into the cool air of early December.

Jason knew he’d have to talk to Piper before they could actually sit down in the same room and enjoy a meal and there was no way to avoid it but run. He wasn’t going to run.

He made a mental note to give his best friend a piece of his mind at a different time. He was more upset he had been thrown into the wolves by someone he was supposed to trust than he was about having to cut his heart open for Piper in order to get a few slices of pizza.

As soon as she set foot in the carpeted floor of the living room, the tension in the room exponentially increased. Jason thought that _you can cut it with a knife_ was definitely not the right phrase to use if he wanted to refer to it. There should be another saying, one that he could use when the tension would shatter the knife instead of rendering itself vulnerable to it. Like you can _break it with a wrecking ball_ , or a _bulldozer_. Or an _Air Force Bomber_.

“Hey...” She smiled politely and shook her head before staring at Leo in an obvious cry for help. “I brought cheesecake.”

Jason watched her nervously tap the white box of the cake as she tried to focus on her anchor for the situation, but Leo seemed to realise maybe his idea of opening the lion cage to the colosseum has not been as brilliant as he thought. So his mouth hang open in a search for words and Jason decided to find them for him, standing up and wiping his uncomfortable hands in the thighs of his jeans. 

“I’ll help you find a place in the fridge for it.” He shot her a small smile before stepping over Nico’s legs and making his way over to the kitchen, hoping Piper would follow.

He wasn’t exactly nervous. He was a little scared things would take a turn for the worst and Leo had majorly messed up with his genius plan. He was anxious about the outcome of their _tête-à-tête_ because of what it would mean for the group, not him. He’d already been hurt. The damage had already been done.

Maybe this would actually help him have a somewhat healthy relationship with Piper instead of having him cutting bee lines in the school corridors and house parties to get away from her. Maybe that was the goal he had to look forward to instead of focusing on the plausibility that he’d have to walk away from his friends, much like Piper had.

“He didn’t tell you, did he?” She startled him as she spoke, softly sliding the box of the dessert into the counter.

Her tone was as melodic and entrancing as ever. He could hear the slight break in her voice as she started the question, like she was afraid that the fact that Jason was unprepared was not setting a good start for their conversation. And she was probably right to think so. 

“It’s fine.” He dismissed it, crossing his arms over his chest and letting his lower back rest against marble on the other side of the kitchen as he watched Piper act the most uncomfortable he had ever seen her.

Piper was a confident woman. She transpired boldness and conviction. Heads turned when she walked into a room, even if she did her best to look small and disappear in the crowd. She believed she was successful in her attempts to be ordinary. She didn’t, because she was anything _but_. 

She had her hands tucked under her armpits, staring at her foot, which she was using to follow the circles lines of the linoleum mosaics under her sock. He didn’t think she had a reason to be that nervous. 

Piper had an entire living room of people who would back her up if Jason tried to be difficult about reconciliation. If anyone was walking out of the door without dinner, it would be him. Leo had made sure of it with his ultimatum.

“I just-...” Jason started, taping his fingers on his wool covered bicep. “A text?”

“I’m sorry.” She looked up at him with an apologetic expression and Jason still didn’t know how to be mad at Piper. 

“Okay...” He shrugged and looked at the counter so he didn’t have to look at her. He mostly knew he wouldn’t be able to actually speak his mind if he focused on her soft features. “I don’t think that’s going to be enough.”

“I know.” She nodded and closed half of the distance between them with a couple of steps. “I know, but I have no excuse for it. I _am_ sorry, though.”

They didn’t have anything between them anymore, the kitchen island stranded behind Piper and the arms length that separated them. 

Jason had nowhere to look where he wouldn’t be obviously avoiding Piper, so he had to actually _see_ her for the first time in months. 

She looked beautiful, even as her eyebrows arched softly in a plea for Jason’s understanding. She had her hair in a high bun, a few strands loose that framed her face. She wasn’t wearing any make up, which Jason had always preferred for the simple fact that she looked so much more comfortable with herself that way. 

He had to cough out the knot that closed up his throat, formed by the realisation of how much he still cared for this girl. He didn’t want to have her lose her group of friends over a break up. It was childish and immature and neither of them were interested in changing their relationship status so... why was he so caught up on details?

“Okay.” He nodded slowly. “Sure.”

She knew him well enough not to accept his conformity. She huffed and shook her head, flattening the hair on the sides of her head with her hands in a sign of exasperation. 

Jason had been accused of being too emotional at times. Being a romantic was what made him right for his literature degree. He saw possibility, not reason. Even if lately he had been so emotionally clouded all his possibilities were disastrous.

Whoever said that about him was right. And, when it came to his relationships, it showed.

“No, Jason. Listen...” She put a hand on his forearm, the other searching for his palm, safely tucked away in the curve of his elbow, to curl her fingers around it. “You know I love you... From the bottom of my heart, I do. That’s why I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t look you in the eye and make you feel unwanted. Because it wasn’t about that. As cliché as it sounds, it was about me.”

She looked so sincere. And Piper always had a way with her words that made him believe almost anything she chose to tell him. And this was no different. He believed she meant well and he hadn’t ever been mad at her from doing what she thought was best for her. 

He just wished he’d had the chance to ask his questions. To have her help him understand all of it instead of leaving him stranded in an island of self deprecating thoughts that took him a couple of months to swim away from. And he was still making his way back to firm land.

“I wasn’t happy... And I felt constricted. And there is still so much of me I need to explore before I’m ready to something so permanent...” She squeezed her hand over his. “I never meant to hurt you, Jay. But we want different things.”

He sighed. What was he supposed to say? He knew everything she was telling him already. It did feel like she was ripping right through an old wound that he worked so hard to close. He closed his eyes to ground himself in the reality that it was all that was, even if he could feel the edges of it growing apart again. It was an old affliction he could see but had learned not to touch.

“I know, Pipes... I just wish you had talked to me.” He confessed in a whisper. The proximity somewhat made him drop the volume of his voice, which made it a little easier to speak over the soreness that still tightened his vocal cords. “This would have been easier...”

She frowned, nodding, and for a second, Jason though she might cry. But she slowly reached closer to him and wrapped her arms around his neck, to which he responded by crossing his behind her back.

He knew what she was trying to say with the gesture. He knew she was apologising and agreeing and hoping that was enough for now. And Jason thought it might be.

She was a familiar weight against him, and he exhaled the pressure that had been tugging at his chest for the last three months. Maybe he needed Piper in his life. Maybe they had never been meant to be more than this.

Actually hearing the words out of her mouth was probably what he had been needing for the entirety of the time he spent crying over whole situation surrounding the break up. Maybe it was the finality he needed to figuratively let go of Piper as his girlfriend and embrace her as a friend.

When she stepped back, she actually groaned and rubbed the end of her sleeve across her eyes to wipe the lightly formed pearls that threatened to fall down her cheeks. “Okay!...” 

Piper nodded, looking up to blink away the remainder of the tears that kept swarming her eyes. She laughed once, shaking her head like she was disappointed with her own behaviour.

“Okay.” She repeated, and Jason wondered if it was because she was still trying to convince herself that things were actually okay. “So, we can be civil now.”

Jason chuckled and nodded back at her, looking down at the slim, bright pink cut in the palm of his hand.

Had he known that it would have been so easy to be _civil_ , would he have had this conversation earlier? Would it still end up being the most mature argument he’s ever heard of? Or would it have ended in bloodshed? He almost fell like it was pure idiocy to have tried - unsuccessfully - so hard to hate Piper for what seemed like forever.

“Let’s go get ourselves some pizza?” She suggested, grabbing his attention back from following his thumb on his palm.

“Huh, yeah.” Jason agreed, pushing himself away from the counter. “I’m just popping to the loo first.” 

She watched him for a second, most likely looking for any signs of discomfort in his expression that would confirm her suspicions that he was just running away. But, even though it was partly true, Jason didn’t let it show how he wanted a breather from the uncomfortable situation. So Piper shrugged and sighed with a nod, quietly making her way back to the living room.

Jason exhaled loudly after she was far away enough that she wouldn’t hear him, shaking his head to himself and puffing out his cheeks as he turned to the window for a few seconds.

He knew this had to be as stressful for Piper as it was for him but, in his defence, she was probably not worrying about a stubborn, soft gothic boy and his ridiculous amount of band t-shirts. She was most likely free of the constant urge to do something growing in his chest, fighting with his rational knowledge that a spur of the moment urge was exactly what led him to anxiety driven days.

Jason was so _very_ conflicted about everything going on in his love life. He wouldn’t know where to start if he were asked about it. And he had been asked about it by Annabeth. He was glad she spoke _incoherent rambling_ and usually got exactly what he meant by his word vomits.

Between Piper reappearing in his friend group and Nico pretending he hadn’t been ignoring him since the previous Wednesday, Jason just wanted to close the door of that second floor bathroom behind him and never come out. 

He certainly didn’t want to go back into that living room and sit down with a bunch of people, or enjoy his food. But, thanks to his dear best friend, that was his challenge for the rest of the night. 

He went up the stairs, taking the steps in pairs, walking down the dark corridor to distractedly make his way to Leo’s suite. Reyna had only agreed to give Leo the big room if she had rights to the big bathroom and, having mostly men frequent the house, she had also deemed her space off limits for the boys. So they had to run all the way to the end of the corridor for an activity that would take less than two minutes when they could just use the main toilet in the first floor of the house.

As he turned the corner, he hit a hard mass that he didn’t see come his way. They both groaned as they instinctively ricocheted off each other, trying to back away from the unexpected impact.

He found himself holding Nico’s shoulder after he unconsciously tried to stop the majority of the collision between them. The other man looked like he’d seen a ghost and, if Jason were correct, he probably was hoping it was actually a ghost and not the man he’d been trying so hard to avoid being alone with.

“Jason!” He squealed, clearing the high pitch out of his voice before continuing. “Sorry. I didn’t see you.”

Nico took a step back, ready to circle Jason and run away as fast as possible. And Jason should have let him. He knew how uncomfortable it could be to have to talk to someone when you didn’t want to. Hell, Jason didn’t know if he wanted to talk to Nico either after just sorting out his thing with Piper.

He was stunned for a second, confusion still reigning in his face from the surprise crash on his way to the bathroom. But he quickly stepped to the side to stop Nico from taking another step toward his only exit.

By the way he looked at him, Jason suspected Nico knew this was coming and he was already trying to calculate the best way to get out of it.

He thought about how different his dynamic with him was compared to how he handled Piper. How instead of being the one who wanted to run and hide from confrontation, Jason was the one wanting to face it head on. It was a completely different feeling from the one he’d felt moments before and it gave him a sort of courage that only _Sparky_ knew.

“Ah.” Jason started, while Nico closed his eyes and exhaled, obviously annoyed. “So you _are_ avoiding me.”

“I’m not _avoiding_ you.” He replied too fast, like he had spent a good amount of time rehearsing his refute.

Jason nodded slowly, watching Nico’s eyes flicker away from him. He had gathered before that the man wasn’t a very good liar when confronted, he was just very good at omitting things. 

“So you have nothing to say about what happened?” He asked him, raising an eyebrow.

Nico froze, still looking away from him and fixing his gaze on some point far down the corridor as he started shaking his head slowly. “Hmmm... No. No, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He spoke in a whisper, like he was afraid someone might surprise, them just like Jason had done to him.

Jason instinctively looked down the corridor too, following the imaginary line that connected Nico’s eyes to the far point in the darkness. It was as empty as he expected it to be. Nico maintained the same level of interest in the empty corridor and he seemed more determined in keeping his focus away from Jason. 

He wasn’t going to spend his remaining energy in trying to force Nico to talk. He wasn’t happy conforming with his silence , but Jason stepped out of his way anyway. 

Nico, for some reason, tilted his head like he was surprised by his stand down.

They both stared at each other in utter confusion. From the way Nico had been behaving, Jason was more and more convinced that he didn’t want anything to do with him. He was dismissive, vague. He didn’t look him in the eye. But his new hesitancy to leave when given the space to only added to Jason’s already enormous doubt about him.

The cut in his palm burned lightly, as if reminding him exactly what had led to the current situation. He tucked the palm of his hand against his ribs, his bicep pressing it against the rough fabric of his sweater, as he crossed his arms.

“So...” Jason started. “Still nothing?”

Nico narrowed his eyes but he didn’t reply to him, mimicking his motion and crossing his arms over his chest.

Jason decided to continue, leaning slightly forward into Nico’s beloved personal space. He spoke in an amused whisper with the purpose of getting a reaction from him. “Should I do it again? Maybe it’ll jog your memory...”

“Oh my _god_!” Nico groaned in exasperation while Jason laughed quietly.

But he didn’t leave. Instead, Nico turned away from him and took a few steps in the direction he’d come from, meaning now both of them were concealed by the corner wall that lead to the stairs’ corridor. Jason hoped that meant he was willing to talk to him.

He knew he’d probably just made the whole situation worse by joking about it in a dark corner of The Argo. But the other option was that he was completely wrong about Nico’s feelings towards him and the boy didn’t actually dislike him. There was a high possibility that he was just being expectedly stubborn.

“Look, I don’t know what you want from me-...”

“ _From_ you?” Jason interrupted him, having to stop his voice from exceeding the seemingly acceptable decibels for the conversation. 

Nico didn’t reply right away. He watched him, standing in the middle of the empty hallway, the dim moonlight that came through the window illuminating half of his face. He wondered what was going through his head. He figured he would end the night only wondering, because Nico seemed set on keeping his thoughts to himself.

_From me_. That was something people said when they felt robbed of something, when they felt like their will had no play in the game. It was something Jason didn’t want to hear from Nico. Did he really feel that way? Did Jason’s actions really have that much of a negative impact on him?

“You kissed me. You were drunk.” Nico stated, matter of factly.

“Wait. That’s not why-”

“We don’t have to talk about it.” Nico continued, despite the fact that Jason was obviously trying to stop him. “You’re a straight dude, you’re _touchy_ when you drink. Your secret is safe with me.”

“What!?” Jason took a step away from the wall, eyebrow raised in confusion. He was sure he sounded a little more aggressive than he had meant to.

Firstly, Nico was not wrong. But it still caught him by surprise that he decided to bring up the fact that he was an over affectionate drunk. Secondly, Jason kept being more and more offended by people assuming his sexuality. At least out loud. It was starting to drive him off the age of his bisexual sanity.

He knew he made his assumptions too. Nico was a clear example of Jason’s society driven speculations. Maybe he was as straight as a circle. Maybe he wasn’t. It was not his place to ask.

“What, _what_?” Nico asked, finally aware that Jason was trying to talk over him, possibly because he’d distracted him from his monologue with his new tone.

Nico had automatically entered a more defensive stance, which Jason could understand because 

“Very bold of you to assume I’m that narrow.” 

Nico acted physically taken aback by his declaration, his head moving slightly back as he stared at him. He looked like he was trying to decide if he believed him or not and Jason did his best to keep his smile to a minimum. He didn’t think he did a very good job.

“Nico.” Jason continued in a whisper, taking another step closer to him. “How many _straight dudes_ have actually kissed you?”

Jason expected to prove a point with his question. The point being that he didn’t know any straight guy that would go around kissing his friends. Especially in situations that in no way, shape or form screamed arousal. And, as someone whose hand had been bleeding in a kitchen sink, Jason was pretty sure that _that_ didn’t qualify as a sexual theme in any healthy setting.

He narrowed his eyes at Jason, crossing his arms over his chest defensively and letting his deadpan expression return.

“Well, apparently only two.” He said, in a monotone.

That was not the answer Jason was waiting for. He had the same surprised expression Nico had sported a few minutes before. Funny how the tables had turned so fast, making him the source of entertainment. 

What was that supposed to mean, _only two_?

He shook his mind back into focus, unfazed by Nico’s growing grin, noticeable even as it was darkened by the shadow of the curtain. Jason frowned as thoughts kept forming in shambles in his head. 

“Can we like... stop being cryptic for a _sec_?”

“I’m not being cryptic, _Jason_.” Nico raised an eyebrow, pressing on his name as he said it, still very amused by the conversation that had been annoying him not long before. “I very specifically remember telling you I had a crush on a _man_.”

Jason froze, watching Nico as he studied Jason’s reaction to what he was saying. It seemed like he expected him to know this but Jason’s working mind couldn’t grasp that information as something he’d heard before.

He didn’t remember any dialogue where Nico had said anything that remotely eluded to him liking men. He didn’t remember ever touching the subject of sexuality with him, or anyone else in Uni besides Annabeth and Percy. 

Jason’s frown deepened as he tried to think of when that revelation had happened, fixing his eyes in different points in the room as his thoughts shifted just as fast, through different conversations that they’d had throughout the semester. And he still didn’t know what Nico was talking about. 

He was pretty sure he’d remember an important detail like that. A piece of information that would’ve spared him a few sleepless hours every night in which he rolled around in bed thinking about the possibility of Nico not even liking guys.

He wondered how drunk he’d have to be to forget something like that. And then his jaw dropped, followed by a prolonged _Oh_ as he realised the exact quantity of alcohol that could lead him to a long term memory loss level of drunk. 

Halloween.

“Do you seriously not remember?” Nico said in hushed annoyance, leaning closer to him to try not to raise his voice as his tone got angrier.

“I was distracted!” Jason said defensively, the urge to laugh at himself nearly overwhelming the need to excuse himself from his agreeably stupid mistake.

“There was literally nothing else happening.” Nico paused, grimacing. “What could you even by distracted by!?” 

“You!” Jason admitted, cutting in before Nico had the chance to finish the question.

And then, silence.

The word lingered in the air like sulfur after a volcanic eruption. Jason wasn’t lying. He wished he could visually share his memories of Halloween because, as fuzzy as they were, they were mostly of Nico.

Hardly recognising Nico draped in white, with a flower crown in his head that matched the pink and purple hues around his warm brown eyes. He’d completely dismissed everyone else’s costumes when he saw Nico unsuccessfully trying to blend into the sea of greek motifs. 

The horrified glare he’d given him as he realised Jason was way too comfortable with heights for someone who lacked the magical ability to fly.

The way he smiled at him, nose scrunching as the tip grazed his own, talking about the night sky and laughing under the shimmering lights of the stars.

He remembered the way Nico’s eyes wandered over his face as he talked about his sister, like he was trying to get more than the literal meaning of his words. Like he was really listening, looking for the sentiment instead of the rationale behind his voiced thoughts. And Jason remembered thinking how much he liked being seen like that by him, how much he wanted his thoughts to matter to Nico.

The onyx haired man in front of him took on that same analytic look as the silence settled, trembling at the sound of their breathing and the faint voices that came from downstairs. They looked at each other for longer than it was expected and Jason was uncertain if he should break the moment or if he should let Nico work through whatever it was he was thinking and speak on his own time.

But they’d already been away from the group for a long time. He was sure someone was bound to notice that too and send a search party for their lost members. And he didn’t want to leave the matter unsolved again, interrupted, like they had left in the kitchen.

“Can you _please_ just verbalise your thou-...”

Jason was interrupted before he could finish. As unexpected as it was, he eagerly welcomed Nico’s obtrusion as the rest of his words were lost against his mouth.

He stumbled over Nico for a moment before he found his footing, being pulled forward by the wool of his shirt when two fists curled around his collar. His hands firmly grabbed at Nico’s waist, to stop them both from falling, as he pushed against his lips with the same aggravated intensity as they were received. Nico’s fingers left a stream of tingling skin as they trailed their way through his shoulders to hook his arms around his neck, inching himself forward and connecting their fast rising chests.

And, just like that, the space that surrounded them was no longer relevant. Jason had no time to doubt himself, or Nico’s intentions. He accepted his tongue’s demands against his lips, drinking the vague taste of coffee and toothpaste like both their lives depended on it. His fingers memorised the curve of Nico’s lean muscles, dragging against the thin fabric of his t-shirt as he tried to get impossibly closer to Jason, like the goal was to melt their bodies together until they merged into one.

The tenderness and shyness of their first kiss was gone, replaced by a hunger and urgency similar to that of an uncontrolled wildfire, running aimlessly through the landscape and wiping away every inch it touched, as quickly as it could. Just like that fire, theirs had been started by the figurative lightning that Jason’s word has struck on Nico, who was covering as much ground as he could.

He could easily have given up his human need for oxygen only to prolong their contact, but Nico seemed to disagree with how he prioritised his needs. Suddenly, there was a vacancy where his lips used to be. Jason instinctively tried to chase them, only to be stopped by the roughness of Nico’s thumb against his chin.

His warm exhale hit Jason’s face as he huffed out an amused breath. The rest of his fingers cupped his cheek, nails grazing the two day stubble Jason sported for lack of motivation to shave. 

“Fuck... We should go back downstairs...” Nico whispered in a breathless puff.

Jason’s thumbs rubbed circles just over his hipbones, where his hands rested comfortably with just enough pressure to keep him from magically disappearing from his reach.

He should’ve expected that to be the reason why he’d stopped. He should’ve probably been the sensible one and bring up the fact that they were taking a long while away from the rest of the group.

But he’d been caught pleasantly off guard and, in all honesty, Jason didn’t really want to trade Nico for eight other people, no matter who they were.

He responded with a disappointed hum, nuzzling his cheek against Nico’s. He didn’t think he’d opened his eyes since Nico had taken the initiative to kiss him. He didn’t think he wanted to, happy with the tactile sensory overload instead.

“I don’t think they need us...” 

Nico’s hands slid down to his chest in order to gently put some distance between them. Jason was forced to open his eyes, pouting in the process, to look at the scrutinising expression in the other’s face. 

“Do you really want this to be _news_ the day your ex girlfriend marches back into your life?”

Jason almost wanted to groan at the fact that Nico was right. As per usual.

He probably didn’t want to go back to the packed living room and announce that snogging Nico was the reason why he’d taken ages in the toilet, or pretended to do so, especially when one of the occupants of said room was Piper. Who he had just talked to about... _feelings_.

He felt a little like an hypocrite, having the two things overlap in a way he didn’t expect them to. Like there was too big of a mess of emotions on his place for him to feel one hundred percent genuine about any of them without dismissing the others entirely.

He didn’t really think he’d have Piper around after the breakup at all, let alone having her back into his daily routine right in the middle of realising and executing his feelings for someone else. 

With a sigh, he threw his head back in defeat. “ _Fine_.”

Nico smiled at his overreaction and Jason kissed him scorn away. 

He was ecstatic that he could do that. That they had , somehow, silently and voraciously agreed that it was acceptable to kiss and touch each other at any given time, for no reason at all.

Nico slowly pushed himself away from Jason, shaking his head at the gesture in endearment before he smiled at him. “Wait for a few minutes?”

Jason nodded, the stupidest smile on his face as he watched Nico turn the corner of the wall. He leaned against the cold surface of the wall behind him, grinning to himself in the dark of the corridor.

His week had gone from going miserably wrong to overwhelmingly well in minutes. Despite the fact that he would have to continue lying to his friends for a little while longer and that he’d have to find a way to deal with Piper being around a lot more often, it couldn’t get any better. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’all... I looked at this for such a long time, I’m not going to touch it anymore.
> 
> I hope it’s satisfactory because I’m on the fence about it :/
> 
> I’m going to have a few weeks off work so I may take a little longer to update (or turn into the Flash, there will be no in between!).
> 
> Either way, thanks for sticking around. See ya in the next one!


	8. Nico (Week 10 - All I want for Christmas)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s official. Just like the fact that Nico is not at all excited to go home for the Holidays.

_Fly me to the Moon and let me play amongst the stars_   
_Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars”_

_Frank Sinatra-_

They’d been together for a week and a half. They weren’t officially dating but, to be quite honest, Nico couldn’t care less.

Jason didn’t feel comfortable with making an announcement when Piper was so freshly back into the group. Nico didn’t feel comfortable making an announcement at all. So they just decided to carry on with their lives, without actively hiding from anyone or actively telling anyone. If it came up, they wouldn’t deny it. But it had been working out well for them.

With the last stretch of exams and papers on them, they could actively try to _tell_ people and Nico was sure no one would pay attention anyway. It gave them their little corner for a while, which was greatly appreciated because he was still trying to figure out how to go about this _boyfriend_ thing.

He was used to being alone. He was used to minimal physical contact, even with his close friends. And it was never about it making him uncomfortable, it was bout him feeling self conscious with displays of affection. He was uncomfortable because he didn’t know how to demonstrate fondness through touch without feeling like he was being horribly awkward. Looking back, he didn’t know where he’d gotten the balls to kiss Jason in the first place. But he was glad he had.

Still, he didn’t know to transition from his usual self to one that could comfortably accommodate Jason’s emotional ease. He didn’t know how to convey to him that he _did_ want closeness and touching and that feeling of sensory overload he got every time they kissed, the tingling vibration in his skin like it was about to shatter into pieces. 

He didn’t find it hard to welcome Jason’s initiatives at contact. He welcomed them unthinkingly and happily, but his brain somehow kept putting a question mark in front of his own, unsure if they were _right_. Like it still hadn’t processed that it was okay, that there wasn’t a line he couldn’t cross anymore. Luckily, Jason was unbothered by his very little initiative and shamelessly sought warmth on his own time.

Nico had been half sitting in his bed since mid afternoon, when Will informed him he’d be out until later than night because he was going insane over his _Anatomy_ exam. The loose papers of his _Introductions to Quantum Physics and Relativity_ ’s notes rested on the thighs of his sweatpants and he used one hand to turn the pages around before discarding them carelessly onto the mattress next to him.

Also laying on him was half asleep Jason, who had taken the vacancy in the room as an invitation to bring take out and absolutely no ounce of motivation to study for his _Greek II_ oral exam.

He’d complained it was too cold to focus and snuggled up next to a very focused Nico, wrapping one arm around his torso and using his shoulder as a pillow. At first, he tried to distract him so he could have some company in his boredom but Nico had been determined to finish reading all his notes and Jason eventually dozed off. 

Nico had been distracted running his fingers through the patch of hair sticking out of his boyfriend’s (that was still so weird) hoodie, when he grazed his nose against his jaw with a sleepy hum.

“Are you done, or what?” Jason mumbled, lips moving against Nico’s jawline.

“Or what...” Nico replied, restarting the first sentence of his _Special Relativity_ notes. 

He was confident he knew the syllabus like the palm of his hand but he also thought one could never be to careful when it came to Mrs Dodds’ exams. 

He didn’t continue studying for long, finding himself rereading the same paragraph for the tenth time and retaining next to nothing of the words on the paper. Jason continued brushing his lips through his neck, the cold metal of the rim of his glasses occasionally stinging his skin. 

Nico had lost all interest in anything Physics. It was late, he was already tired without the added strain of undivided focus. He let his papers flop back into his lap and relaxed into Jason’s touch, which judging by his titter, was his goal along,

“I hate you...” Nico murmured without intent.

Jason hummed, kissing the soft patch of skin edged between Nico’s ear and the bony prominence of his jaw. “No, you don’t...” 

“No, I don’t...” Nico repeated, turning his head to face him.

Someone could argue that he was wrong, but this was the best version of Jason he’d seen as of yet.

Nico liked seeing him the same level of vulnerable he let himself be when he drank, with the added hindrance of sobriety. A couple of days of unshaven stubble adorned the hollows of his cheeks, filling the bottom space of his face nicely. His large pantos frames sat comfortably on the bridge of his nose, now crooked by the pressure his cheek exercised against the shoulder it rested on. 

Nico smiled at the fact that, despite growing up in England and being used to an unfriendly weather, Jason was usually cold while Nico wasn’t really bothered by the lower temperatures. He smiled because, in spite of his complaints, he could still feel the blond’s naked shins against his sweatpants covered legs, product of the running shorts he insisted on wearing with the three layers of tops he constantly pulled over his uncovered ears.

“Hi...” Jason smiled at him and softly pecked his lips.

“Shouldn’t you be studying Greek, or Latin, or whatever it is you have to speak tomorrow?” Nico asked, knowing Jason was probably more prepared to have a conversation in either of those languages than he was for Mrs Dodds’ hell ride.

Jason ran his fingers up Nico’s chest and smirked. “How about Italian?” He offered, his lips stretching slightly at Nico’s eye roll.

“You’re impossible...”

“Improbable.” Jason chuckled. He was clearly making fun of him and Nico was not having it. “According to you, nothing is impossible.”

One of the first things Nico had perceived about Jason was the fact that he was a good listener (except when he was intoxicated on roofs, watching the night sky and being ridiculously handsome). Yet, he kept forgetting that meant he would also remember his words and throw them back his way whenever he found handy. He hated, in the best possible sense of the word, that he had no way to refute his comeback because he was, again, right.

“Okay, Einstein...” Nico mumbled. “You got me.”

At that, Jason’s smile stretched only for a second before returning to an acceptable, not overly amused size. He felt the blond’s index finger lightly touch the skin of his forehead and follow a strand of hair he slowly pushed away from his face, following the careful movement with his rich blue eyes. 

Nico had noticed Jason was usually very annoyingly pressing to get his attention, but then he didn’t ask for much more. They acknowledged each other in silence, and Nico thought those moments had considerably helped reduce the stress during his exam week. He would’ve had a break down sooner if it were just him and his hyperactive pill of a roommate stressing over deadlines and lengthy syllabuses.

Nico let his eyes fall shut, the last remaining images of his notes leaving his mind as he exhaled his exasperation at every breath along with every other coherent thought. The gentle brush of Jason’s fingers sent tingles down his neck and to his spine, the thumb trailing a path on his cheek as the rest spread through the sensitive patch of skin directly under his ear. 

He knew he would easily fall asleep to the faint feeling of his caresses and the rhythmic wave of warm air that softly hit his face as Jason maintained the slow, prolonged pattern of breathing he assumed while almost asleep. Nico also knew he didn’t want to sleep, as it seemed to be the second most performed activity between the two of them in the past week, studying still number one in the podium. And Jason would be travelling back to London at the end of the week and he’d stay there for almost a month.

A month! Their timing really was the worst.

“Thank you...” It was a barely audible whisper Nico didn’t think he’d be able to interpret if he wasn’t the one speaking the words.

But Jason did, and he hummed faintly in response before he pressed his mouth on Nico’s still parted lips.

These tender, deep breath inducing kisses still left him breathless and dizzy, and caught him completely off guard. They were completely different from the hungry eruption of bottled emotions Nico had experience in the dark hallway of the Argo II, or even the sweet but rushed exchange over the bloody sink. They were fuelled by something else, something that Jason could somehow shift through to Nico and create that pleasant pull on his stomach, a wave of *something* that made all his muscles melt into a soft pool of nothing.

He kissed a fair share of boys before and he’d never felt what he thought was a very romanticised feeling of being literally _weak in the knees_ before and he still didn’t fully comprehend it, which was what he believed led him to be equally surprised by it every time, even if it happened so often. 

Jason’s lips retreated for a second before Nico connected with them again, slowly shifting his body so it could face him. He wrapped his arm around Jason’s torso trying to hold on to that mushy feeling, and returned his kiss with equal sentiment. 

He knew he fought Jason on having more study breaks when he was around because it was very unlikely that he would pick up any of his notes again. Any worry over his academic prowesses was dead and buried under wandering hands and the taste of the Pumpkin Spice coffee that had followed Jason into his room and now sat cold in Nico’s desk. 

He didn’t know how long they’d been since he’d become so eagerly distracted by - or overly focused on? - everything Jason Grace that he didn’t hear the shuffle of keys against the locked door, or the door opening. Or notice what should be the very obvious presence of his roommate until he banged the door closed.

“Oh! My! God!”

Will’s screechy exclamation startled Nico so much he flailed back in the bed, elbowing Jason in the nose as he tried to quickly sit up. He winced and grabbed his face, rollin away from Nico who now just staring in his direction, open mouthed and unsure of what to worry about first.

Will was just standing at the end of their beds, mouth agape and hands on his hips like Nico’s mother used to do whenever she found the both of them destroying some part of their old house. He was almost expecting his best friend to break into a monologue about the practicing of safe sex by the way he looked between Nico and Jason like they were physically hurting him by coexisting in the same bed. Fully clothed. 

Meanwhile, his boyfriend’s shoulders shook as he kept lying in bed, face covered by both of his open palms. _Great._ Because all he wanted for Christmas was to send the man back home to his mother with a black eye. 

“Shit, I’m so sorry!” When he tried to move Jason’s hand to check for physical damage, he verified the guy was just laughing and lightly punched him in the arm. “Okay, no... Fuck you.”

This just caused the laughter to increase.

“What in the name of Apollo is this!?” Will kept his parental stance.

Nico raised an eyebrow at his question. The flare for the dramatics was still there. He’d started invoking his father’s name as if he were referencing the God of the sun himself after a newspaper article had referred to the Country singer as having a godly aura on stage. 

Knowing Will and the amount of people he’d had in the very same room they were standing in, Apollo was truly the God he would want to call upon to refute whatever ridiculous argument his roommate was about to throw at him.

“What?” Nico asked, as Will was silent long enough for him to assume that he was genuinely expecting an answer. 

“You two are dating!?” Will shook his head in what looked like disapproval.

“I’m seriously reconsidering.” Nico eyed Jason, who was still chuckling to himself, through the corner of his eye. 

He pushed him in hopes that it would make him stop acting like an idiot - as if a push would create a miracle - but he only rolled further to the edge of the bed and slowly pushed himself into a sitting position.

“Hi, Will.” He greeted with an amused smile, tilting his head in a charming way Nico was glad he’d not directed at him in front of his roommate.

Will responded by looking back at Nico with a huge interrogation mark across his face.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Sarcasm tinged Nico’s words. “Is he not your preferred choice of suitor for me?”

“Are you _kidding_?” Will quickly glided through the small space that separated him from his bed and let himself fall down on his mattress. “I’ve been praying for this since I saw him! I’m just pissed you had the audacity to keep this information from _me_.” 

Jason seemed really amused that they were having a conversation about him and he had no obligation whatsoever to be apart of it. Nico almost felt jealous but then he remembered who Jason would have to have this very same conversation with.

He clapped his boyfriend in the back and rested his chin on his shoulder with a pleased, sarcastic grin. “Yeah. Laugh. I’ll laugh too when you have to explain to Percy that his little cousin is your rebound.”

Jason’s face fell. “That’s not true and you know it.”

“Yeah... But he doesn’t.” Nico kissed his cheek and rested back against his headboard.

“I think I’m gonna go.” 

Will shook his head at Jason with a smile, obviously as amused by the realisation as Nico was, and they both watched him slide his feet into his sneakers.

“Wait.” Will looked from Nico to Jason with interest. “Who was the rebound, then?”

“Rara.” Jason replied, voice small as he hooked the strap of his bag through his head.

“Reyna!?” Will opened his mouth in amused surprise. Then he fanned himself with his hand and collapsed into his pile of pillows. “My, my, I can’t wait for _my_ turn.” 

Jason turned on his heels to stare at Will with a blank expression. Nico lowered his head and covered his lips with a closed fist to hide the inevitable laughter that his boyfriend brought on him. 

The blond looked in his direction and blinked with the same unreadable face. “Bye.”

“Bye.” Nico replied with a chuckle. “Sleep with one eye open!”

They heard the faint _Bugger off_ that came from the corridor and both friends laughed. Will threw one of his many decorative pillows at Nico, which started a night of questions and gossip that kept them both away from their studying.

  
The rest of the week went by too fast, considering he knew he had a trip to the airport coming soon. Jason was going first, his last exam being on a Thursday morning gave him and his family a good opportunity to get a night flight across the Atlantic instead of wasting a whole day on the trip. Nico and Will were travelling to San Francisco early Saturday morning and his best friend was excited to find out they’d booked the same flight as Annabeth. Nico wasn’t so thrilled.

Ever since he had told his cousin about his crush, he hadn’t been able to look at Annabeth with the knowledge that the information might have been shared with her. And how awkward that made it for the both of them. 

He knew Percy well enough to know he was respectful of people’s secrets but Nico had never said it was so. Plus, Annabeth had been his girlfriend for such a long time he doubted they kept any information from each other anymore. 

Hopefully they had seats on opposite ends of the plane and wouldn’t have to make much small talk.

There was also the fact that everyone in the _Argo II_ group chat knew Nico and Jason were an item. Will made the announcement less than ten minutes after finding out, saying Piper could _suck it up_ and insisting that she had no right to be upset when she was the one who had dumped her ex boyfriend. Nico didn’t stop him. It would avoid more almost broken noses in the future, anyway.

Annabeth confessed she knew about the whole thing, which added to Nico’s uneasiness on having to possibly make conversation, because she obviously had three different perspectives on him. She had her own idea of Nico, which was probably the most accurate version of him seeing how she was an extremely observant person. She had the vision Percy had perceived since Nico was fourteen, which had gone from the most broken version of a lonely teen he’d ever been (who had the biggest crush on him, too), to a barely functional young adult who comfortably opened up to him in a beach cabin in Montauk. 

And then, there was Jason’s idea of Nico.

He wondered what that was more often than not. He didn’t care much what people thought of him. There was always a hint of curiosity, which was natural, especially with people he liked. But he didn’t stress about it. But he _would_ like to know what Jason told Annabeth about him. Did he talk about what led him to kiss him when had a hand full of broken glass? Did he tell her about his text on Thanksgiving? Did that mean Annabeth knew Nico spent the day silently mourning his dead mother and sister? Had she given Percy that information? 

Did Jason tell her he liked him or had she figured that out on her own? It wouldn’t be awfully surprising if she did. What else had they collectively noticed about Nico that contributed to Jason’s feelings for him? 

He’d never know. Unless he asked. Maybe one day.

Jason seemed to be relieved he didn’t have to be the one breaking the news to Leo, who according to Jason, had recently become overprotective of Piper. He was the only member of the group who offered no commentary on the news and Jason dismissed it when Nico asked about it, but he knew that was going to bother him until he managed to speak to his friend.

Apart from their group of friends, Nico didn’t think anyone knew or had any particular interest in knowing about their relationship. But his best friend made sure to remind him Jason Grace was the son of a celebrity.

Will showed him a compilation of news articles about Jason and Piper’s relationship to remind him someone, at some point, would be interested in Jason’s love life. That was possibly the worst thing to do when Nico would have three weeks away from his pseudo celebrity of a boyfriend to reconsider how much he wanted to show up on Buzzfeed.

Of course, Piper McLean was the daughter of a Hollywood leading man and had a some modelo work on her curriculum. Nico was a nobody. And that gave him some peace of mind.

Nico was excited to go home and see his sister. But that was it, when it came to family. He didn’t like Christmas, he didn’t like his house and more importantly, he hated his father and his darling of a wife. 

He didn’t have a good history with Kara. She had never tried to replace his mom in a maternal way, which was good, but she jumped at her chance to be the new matriarch of the Di Angelo family as soon as Maria and Bianca were out of the picture. Their bodies weren’t even cold yet and she was already abusing their kitchen staff on the regular. And then she had Hazel.

It had been a really hard adaptation period for Nico until he had the distraction of a baby around the house. For Kara, she acted more like a security blanket in case his dad found a younger and much less demanding substitute for a wife. For Nico, Hazel came as the blessing he didn’t know he needed.

His younger sister was the complete opposite of Bianca, not only physically but in terms of personality. At first, that was huge slap in the face of a boy who was looking for a replacement for his recently deceased family, but in time Nico understood how much of an idiot he was to expect that much of a child. 

She was the sweetest little girl he’d ever met, even without the bias of her being his sister. She was so polite, poised and happy that Nico didn’t know how she could have come out of two unhinged creatures like her parents. He attributed it to their _Bambinaia_ , the hired nanny-slash-governess his dad had hired to look after baby Hazel.

Her name was Alecto. She had been hand picked by Maria Di Angelo to watch Nico and Bianca whenever she had to help her husband with bigger events. Which meant she was an upstart old lady.

She was Italian and Nico loved sitting at the kitchen counter and listen to her talk about when she used to spend her days back home. She told him about her kids, about the summers in her youth where she ran free through the fields of her dad’s vineyard. She spoke about the first children she raised and how all of them still called her for her birthday - which was in April, Nico called too - and how she held them close to her heart. She kept him in touch with the language, the traditions. His mom.

Nico wasn’t exactly a romantic, but he was a sucker for stories. It made his day to listen to people talk about their lives and how differently hey had made the best out of the circumstances that they were given. Alecto had figured that out early enough that she knew how to grab his attention, which wasn’t the case for Bianca. 

Hazel has the same interest for words as Nico. And he was happy it was now her turn to be the focus of their nanny’s loving speeches and careful teachings, instead of learning about love from her materialistic mother.

He was also happy to catch up with her. 

Then there was the Solaces. When it came to men, the Solaces were a pit of perfect genes and ridiculous amounts of self confidence. People thought Will was annoyingly perfect, with his band and his perfect blond curls and top grades. People had obviously never personally met his brothers.

Michael Solace was maybe one of Nico’s favorite people in the world. He had always treated him like he was the best thing to happen to his day when he visited and he still kept in touch, even when Nico had moved to a different city and Will didn’t drag him in the house. Not to mention he had gone off to Europe to model for some big names and his face was probably in more bus stops than in family portraits. He reached out, like he did for his brothers. Nico appreciated the sentiment. 

And that was ridiculously handsome genius number one.

Lee Solace was the quietest of the siblings. He was as good looking as his brothers but he decided to put his artistic nature to good use away from the public eyes as an Aeronautical Engineer. He had gotten his first job at NASA and was doing very well, according to his mother. He didn’t manage to stay hidden for long, though. He was asked to be on one of those big, building sized posters about astronauts and recruiting at some point during his first internship at the Station, and he accepted. As he’d said, he only said entertained the idea because, as an intern, he wanted to please his possible future employers. And it worked.

That was ridiculously handsome genius number two.

Will was the odd one out. He didn’t pick a path he wanted to follow in his life. Nico thought he was still very confused on what he wanted to do in the future. He always said he was focusing on the present, which in Nico’s book meant he had too much on his plate and planning scared him. 

The youngest Solace was in a pretty decently known band, the Sun Chariots. They played in good venues. They had a good fanbase. They had good music, although not at all Nico’s preferes genre. Will was the main vocalist and he loved singing, writing and dedicating his time to his art. But he had always loved Medicine too, and he didn’t want to give that up yet. So he preferred to be generally exhausted all the time to making a choice.

“I’m a Gemini, give me a break.” Will had once said.

And Nico hadn’t asked about his plans again. 

Will was also the only child of Apollo and Naomi Solace who had taken up music, which both parents were famous for. Naomi was a Country singer who had retired to be a mother. Apollo was a Rock artist that was really big in the eighties. If anyone looked at his concerts, they would understand why. His Johnny Cash kind of vibe made his performances so personal you just wanted to hear more.

He was another person Nico loved to hear stories from. His deep voice gave so much important to the events it got anyone hooked on the simplest of retellings.

And those were ridiculously handsome geniuses numbers three and four.

In conclusion, Nico was happy to see everyone but his parental figures, who he’d be spending the majority of the Holidays with.

He prayed, to whatever deity that wanted to listen, that Christmas went as fast as the first half of the semester did.

He went to say goodbye to Jason, who Percy insisted on driving to the airport along with his sister and brother in law, who they’d pick up along the way.

He missed his clingy blond the second he disappeared inside the dark blue car. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’all this is more of a little breather before I go into a bigger chapter that will be Jason’s Christmas at home. I’m on holiday so I’m taking a long time to be able to write, I hope you forgive me! 
> 
> See ya on the next one, let me know what you think !


	9. Jason - Family Matters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How does the song go? London calling to the faraway towns, now war is declared and battle come down?
> 
> That’s it, that’s the summary.

_“Man, all my I’ve been  
_ _Searching for someone  
_ _to show me how it feels to be loved  
_ _And how to love somebody back.”_

_Passenger -_

He couldn’t feel the fingers of his right hand, safely enclosed in his sister’s strong grip. Thalia was afraid of heights and that fear, according to her, only intensified when she was forced to increase her altitude inside a _metal box of death_. 

She sat in the middle seat of their spacious row. Both her hands were ferociously grabbing not only Jason’s numb fingers, but Luke’s. They were already a couple of hours into their flight and the sleeping medication she’d taken had little to no effect. 

Their father had insisted - with words that seemed very rehearsed and unlike him - to pay for all of their plane tickets. And the Graces weren’t allowed to travel cheap, apparently, because Jason was buried in soft leather. It helped Thalia to have nice, spacious seats, in the matter that she was at least more at ease than she would have been flying Coach.

Jason smiled politely at a hostess who watched his sister from the small curtained space that separated them from the front of the plane, a hint of worry in her eyes. He didn’t think he was convincing anyone when he tried to pretend Thalia’s anxiety wasn’t slowly rubbing off on him, seeing that his leg was bouncing insistently while he tried focusing on the small screen in front of him. Luke was doing a lot better than him at being calm.

As he always did when he was in their presence, Jason felt a mixed set of emotions that ranged from a healthy tinge of jealousy to genuine happiness. He had an enormous appreciation for the other blond. He heard Luke take a deep breath before wrapping his arm around his sister and carefully hugging her to his chest. He whispered to her for a while, fingers lovingly running through her hair as her grip loosened on Jason’s hand until she finally fell asleep.

He noticed the hostess dreamily staring in Luke’s general direction and smiled, averting his eyes and distractedly following Captain America on his screen. He couldn’t really blame the woman. It was a feeling Jason had experienced too, the admiration. The longing looks at this caring guy who patiently lulled his fiancée to sleep in a crisis. And he knew it had nothing to do with the man himself - although the guy was easy on the eyes - but with the sentiment behind his actions. Craving that kind of undivided care and attention was something Jason knew too well. 

“I haven’t seen her like this in years...”

Jason’s attention shifted immediately from the superhero movie to his future brother in law. “Hmm?” He tried for a quiet response.

“Thalia.” Luke clarified in a hushed voice, like Jason might be confused as to who he was referring to. “Last time she was like this was when your mother told her you boarded your plane seven years ago. I think she’s more nervous than she’s letting on.”

He hummed again in confirmation that he had heard him. He just didn’t know what to say to it. Jason understood why Thalia might be nervous about London. Apart from the obvious flying factor, she was not on the best terms with either June or Jeremiah, who she always referred to by their first names. 

His mother had no blood relation to Thalia, and she made sure to make that very clear at any given opportunity. Despite Jason’s tries to make her see she should respect his sister, the woman kept making unnecessary remarks whenever she visited the United States to see him. Not only that but she absolutely refused to stay at their apartment. 

He felt bad and, more importantly, very unhelpful in his mediator position. He loved Thalia but he didn’t want to upset his mother either, which meant he couldn’t be as vocal as he wanted about the issue. Of course the circumstances had changed since his mother and Thalia had seen each other last. Jason was older, closer to his sister and definitely less afraid to upset a fully grown woman when he had to.

He hoped he wouldn’t have to.

Then, there was their excuse for a father. Jason’s relationship with the man was already as rocky as it could be. He had an immeasurable level of hate for the guy, which was the first thing he and Thalia had bonded over. Jeremiah was a good business man and, like most successful rich men, he was arrogant in his power. He looked down on people, accepted no criticism for anything and tried to control everyone with money. His mother had fallen a little bit into this same attitude, but she tended to be rather fair and caring, unlike her icy husband. 

Thalia was product of his first affair with Hollywood star Beryl. He was already married to June then and, for the sake of appearances, they decided to bury the scandal under very generous amounts of money. But then his idiot father decided to perform the biggest form of insult to his wife and continue cheating on her with the same woman for years.

Now, if you tried to look up any information about Beryl Grace, the first thing you’d find would be the fact that she was clearly mentally unstable. His father didn’t seem bothered with that fact since he only saw her whenever he travelled to Sonoma, California. Not a lot of huge businesses are made in Sonoma, California, so he didn’t have to deal with the mental breakdowns very often. It was not his problem. Not until Jason was born and Beryl tried to extort him again, with no success.

This was a bigger scandal, and it didn’t escape tabloids’ eye. Jason was the second child of a single, famous actress with an important British CEO, and the guy had no children in his marriage. June ended up in the articles under speculation that either she couldn’t bear children - which was true, but not nice to see advertised hand in hand with your husband’s affairs - or their marriage was only political.

With two children and a bad reputation, his biological mother had to step away from the acting world and addiction quickly led her to a very unfortunate death.

Jason was lucky and, according to his mum, he was the reason she continued to excuse every shit worthy attitude that came from his absent father for so long. She always wanted a child and she saw Beryl’s bad fortune as God’s gift to her. A little morbid, but endearing if you ran it under a very subjective eye.

Thalia, on the other hand, was old enough to press her opinion on the matter and refused to be sent off to London to live with Jeremiah. She went as far as running away and ending up on the street. His dad, of course, didn’t care. So she jumped from foster homes to children’s homes until she was old enough to work and safely make it on her own. 

Jason had been too young to remember his progenitor or sister, being only two years old at the time. He had grown up with what he knew to be a loving mother and a very comfortable lifestyle, while Thalia fought for even a quarter of the same comfort.

Of course she would be nervous to spend such a long time inside a plane, high in the sky, only to be uncomfortable for the entirety of two weeks for the sake of Jason’s happiness. It made his guilt spike and he had to excuse himself and walk to the bathroom just to get away from the very obvious source of his anxiety.

The rest of the flight was quiet. Thalia woke up just as the plane was touching the ground, gasping in unison with the wheel bumping on the asphalt. Jason’s hand was her hostage again, for a brief moment, before she focused her full attention on the reassuring words of her husband to be. 

It was then that he started to realise he was more excited to see his mum than he thought he would be. No matter what his sister said or what the woman did, he loved her and he missed her a lot. They didn’t talk as much as they used to when he first moved to the States, which was understandable, and he knew they weren’t as close either. But Jason felt comfortable and at home when she was around. It had always been just the two of them, after all.

It was very noticeable that Jason was the odd one out in most of his friend groups. Or at least that was how he felt. There was Reyna and Leo, who had known each other before Jason joined their group. Then Percy, Grover and Annabeth, who knew each other since they were in kindergarten or something ridiculous like that. Even Piper was always a lot more comfortable with Leo, independently of the nature of their relationship. And now Nico who had grown up with his college roommate. 

He didn’t have that one person who just knew everything about him, who he could openly talk to because they’d known each other since forever. No, he did. It was June Grace.

➿

She looked exactly how Jason remembered her.

He almost didn’t let the Uber stop before he jumped out of the stopping car, a laugh of relief the only sound that came out of his mouth before he stopped a marble step directly below his mother and let himself be engulfed by her wool covered arms. 

The constant contrast between her fair skin and the darker tones she wore was still there. He didn’t think he remembered ever seeing the woman wear anything lighter than a paler shade of grey in his entire life.

Her hair was shorter, fringe pulled back by her reading glasses that she rested on the top of her head with their silver safety chain dangling down to her shoulders. Short, drop earrings peaked out underneath the almost strategically curled light blond strands that ended right below her earlobes, reflecting the grey light of the sky. 

It was a weird thing, unconditional love. One minute he was thinking about how he was ready to disrespect his mother for being rude to his sister, the next he had his thoughts replaced by the overwhelming nostalgia of June’s perfume, the strong hints of lavender filling him with a much needed sense of calm. 

His mother studied him with a smile, brushing hair away from his face and inspecting his features as if looking for any new scratch or dent that hadn’t been there. Looking at her in that loving light, he almost forgot the woman could sometimes act like a criminal mastermind. 

“You look tired, love.” She finally concluded, losing interest in Jason quickly and looking over his shoulder to what he imagined were Luke and Thalia still thanking their driver.

“He did just come out of a long flight, June.” Jason was not surprised to hear Luke’s sympathy instead of his sister’s likely disdain for the woman. “You didn’t expect him to look as fresh and beautiful as you do.”

It amazed him to hear such genuine sentiment in the man’s voice, knowing just how much he hated her for the way she despised Thalia, but the charm seemed to work well enough on its target. 

His mother waved her hand in dismissal, although the content smile on her face showed just how much she appreciated the compliment, and circled Jason to make her way down the steps and meet his brother in law for an one arm embrace. 

He was starting to worry about his not so subtle jealousy of Luke Castellan.

“Luke, sweetheart.” June greeted him in a sing song voice Jason had never heard directed to the other man before. “What a pleasure to see you again.”

“Mrs Grace, nice to see you.” He replied with a little bow of his head before turning his attention to the colourful bags that contrasted with the grey he gravel of the driveway and picking a couple up. 

“Oh darling, leave those. Don will bring them inside.” June hooked her arm on Luke’s and started walking back to the stairs. “Come, come. We have much to discuss.” 

As the both of them passed Jason and crossed the main door into the house, he and Thalia exchanged a look, still immobile in their stupor. He knew they were both thinking very different things. His sister was probably worried about the implications of her fiancé having a good relationship with her step mother, who happened to do everything in her power to make her life difficult when given the chance. Jason was just lost in his spoiled brat mindset and wondering why his mother had decided he didn’t deserve her attention and that her energy should be directed elsewhere. But they both shared that same inquisitive look that reminded him they were definitely cut from the same cloth.

“Two weeks.” She said, the words coming out with the exasperation of an exhale, as if she had just given up on trying to disprove the notion that she would have to endure fourteen days of this.

Jason nodded, pursing his lips in a sympathetic smile and extending his hand in an invitation for Thalia to accompany him inside.

“It’ll be splendid.” He mocked as his sister climbed up the white marble steps of the exaggeratedly big house. 

She accepted his gesture, slipping her hand into his and taking another sigh, eyes wandering over the cool tones of a typical Winter’s day in England. He almost forgot how everything looked so desaturated under the white hue of the cloud covered sky instead of bright and warm like it did under the New York sun. He missed it, but standing under the high prospect of rain for the whole of five minutes was enough to dissipate that feeling.

“Yeah...” Thalia agreed, even though she didn’t seem too sure of her stance. “Perfectly splendid.”

Their first dinner was awkward.

Jason was basically questioned about his classes for the majority of the meal in an attempt to keep the conversation going. He didn’t mind talking about them, but he tried to keep the answers short and succinct instead of venturing into an in depth analysis of whatever classical book he had picked up for class recently. He knew his mother wanted him to accidentally monopolise the conversation so that she could excuse herself for not taking interest in her guests’ lives.

She didn’t get the satisfaction.

Jason texted Nico before he went to bed to let him know he was alive and well, which he had promised to do when he landed but completely forgot. He tried to wait for a response but his eyes didn’t agree with staying open any longer and he just let himself fall asleep in his childhood bed.

The first day back home was better than he expected. 

Thalia insisted they both went out to shop for Christmas presents, alone, and he found it a little suspicious that she was allowing Luke to spend the day alone with June. But he decided not to argue with her and happily obliged.

They had lunch out of the house and walked around central London, but Thalia didn’t seem very interested in entering any shops, which only increased Jason’s suspicions that the casual shopping trip had a bigger purpose. She was quiet and she opened her mouth a couple of times like she was getting ready to say something but decided against it at the last minute. 

Jason didn’t want to push her into talking, but he was also finding the silence a little too hard to bear. Silence made people talk in an attempt to fill the space, and he itched to say something. But, at the same time, he feared if he did he would completely discourage Thalia from saying whatever she had to say.

“That looks absolutely terrifying.” She finally spoke, sitting down on the edge overlooking the river right below the London Eye. “I don’t know how people stay up there so long...”

Jason followed her gaze to the giant wheel and hummed in response, sitting next to her with his hands shoved deep into his coat pockets for warmth.

“Have you been on that torture device?” She asked, obviously trying to make way for a different conversation.

“Hm, no.” Jason replied, looking back at his sister. “Never had anyone to go with...”

“Oh.” Thalia seemed genuinely surprised by the confession, playfully bumping shoulders with him in preparation for her next remark. “Maybe you can bring that boy you like.”

Jason smiled at the thought. He was pretty sure *that boy he liked* would bluntly refuse to go anywhere near the turning white wheel behind him, the small enclosure being his main problem unlike Thalia’s fear of heights.

“No, I don’t think so.” 

“Is it not going well?” Thalia leaned forward to watch Jason, probably looking for any indication that he was uncomfortable or pained by the mention of the subject.

He realised his comment could be taken a lot of different ways and proceeded to explain it. 

“Oh, no! I mean he wouldn’t like it.” Jason shrugged. “We’re alright, actually.”

That seemed to peak her interest. She gave him a look like she wanted him to say more, and maybe that was what she needed to open up to him. Some information in return.

“Huh...” He took a deep breath before continuing, his fingers restless, hidden from view. He hadn’t officially told anyone about Nico or the fact that they were dating. “We’re together now. It’s been a week.”

“I’m happy for you!”

“Yeah...” He didn’t know how to talk about it. He never did with Piper, either. Even though he was a Literature student and he was technically a romantic, he hated speaking his feelings out loud. Writing was better. “I kind of kissed him before Thanksgiving and then things just-... Happened.”

Thalia nodded, leaning back on the stone edge and looking at the line of people waiting to go into the different attractions. She seemed to get a little distracted by a couple of kids running around their parents while the poor mother tried to get them to stop. Jason didn’t think he wanted that anytime soon.

“Speaking of things that _just happened_...” The words came out so fast that Jason has to make an effort to get that she had actually talked to him. There was a pause, and he almost expected her not to continue. “Since when is your dear mother in love with my husband?”

He let out a laugh, expecting the subject to come up at some point and wondering if that was really what she had been meaning to talk to him about all afternoon, but deciding not to ask.

The rest of their walk through London was filled with laughter and chatter, and so were the few days that led to Christmas. Jason spent most of his time with his sister, which he was beginning to think was Luke’s plan all along. The guy kept diverting June to subjects that took them away from the comfort of the fireplace or the cozy corner of the living room where Thalia sat to watch the garden outside. He appreciated the gesture, especially because he had decided on a rooftop somewhere, under the stars, that he needed to get closer to his sister. He had the whole of the new year for that and only a couple of weeks to bug his mother.

He wanted to hear about her days, like he used to do before he knew about Thalia. To hear about how she was so proud of her flower garden and how she had decided to reenter some old lady type competition for the best roses in England. He wanted her to tell him about some new hobby she’d taken on that just wasn’t her cup of tea, and how she kept doing it because the house was just so empty without Jason.

He wanted to hear about her take on the local news, complete with some story about her youth when things _just weren’t the so complicated_. Hear about some neighbours poor judgement call or her inability to walk to town and deal with the sea of people rushing around. She just wasn’t the kind of person who ever had to rush anywhere.

Jason would be happy to listen to her read _Little Women_ to him for hours on end, like he had done so many times before, until she stopped to discuss one of the March sisters, her opinion changing like the moons - and depending on wether his father had recently been home for a long time or not. 

On Christmas Eve, he got a morning just like that and felt like things just fell into place. 

He got up early, desperate for a cup of water - the result of insisting in sleeping with multiple layers of clothing - and found June reading in the sofa. Without a word, Jason just lied down next to her, comfortably resting his head on her lap and planning to go simply doze off again with the soft strokes of his mother’s fingers in his overgrown bed hair. 

For the first moments, she seemed to agree with their silence, focusing on her book while he felt himself float back into a light sleep, but then his senses refocused on the sound of the heavy hardcover of his mother’s book lightly hitting the wooden surface of the corner table. 

“You should’ve cut your hair, darling.” She said, brushing a few strands away from his face. “You’re not taking care of yourself as you should.” 

Jason frowned, humming in response keeping his eyes closed in an attempt to stop the conversation before it went any further. He knew she hated when his hair didn’t look exactly how she wanted it and he had thought about it before travelling, but with exams and taking every free time to run over to Nico’s dorm whenever Will left the premises, Jason had really just ignored that his hair didn’t fall back into its usual place. 

She was lucky he had shaved. 

“Is this still about the American girl?” 

Jason snorted, finding it amusing that his mum called Piper _the American girl_ , as if he were supposed to meet non American girls in America.

She had never referred to Piper by her first name and was the only person who had thrown a _I knew I didn’t like her_ when he had gotten the break up text in the summer. Jason didn’t know why June never liked his ex girlfriend but the truth was that she had vouched since the beginning for the short duration of the relationship. Maybe it was one of those motherly super powers, like when she always advised him to take an umbrella because she knew it was going to rain despite the fact that there was no meteorological indication for that sort of weather. 

“No...” Jason mumbled, readjusting his head against the soft fabric of her dressing gown. “I was just busy.”

“I’m surprised you two are not back together.” She confessed, resting her hand on his shoulder. “You were so _in love_...”

He groaned, turning his head to look up at his mother for the first time in a while. His eyes complained at the sight of light but it didn’t stop him from rolling them at the remark. “Mum...!”

“Why, sweetheart...” She gave him a lazy one shoulder shrug and tapped her fingers on the fabric of his hoodie. “You were! And she was a nice girl, just-“

“Not nice for me.” Jason finished the thought, one he’d heard a few times.

The woman hummed in agreement and leaned back on the sofa, smiling down at Jason as if she knew something he didn’t. 

“What?” He whispered, and his mother’s lips spread into a content smile, like she was expecting him to ask exactly that.

“Oh, nothing.” A typical response from someone who obviously had something to say. “Just wondering what kept you so busy, that’s all.”

There it was. The casual invitation to tell her this deep secret she knew he had. And she wasn’t wrong, even though she didn’t know at all what he was hiding. Jason didn’t think he was ready to let his mother know he had moved on from the American girl to the Italian _boy_. More importantly, he didn’t think she was ready to know about that part of his life. She never knew about his previous entanglements with men, just like Thalia didn’t know until he told her, even though it was happening right under her nose.

He was well aware of the reason behind June’s niceties towards Luke. He and Thalia were getting married. Or at least it was what she believed, even if Thalia had no intentions of hurrying the party if it weren’t for May Castellan’s deteriorating Alzheimer’s. 

For June, Thalia and Luke were starting a family. They were opening doors to pregnancies, and children and big houses on a nice neighbourhood. Something she had always wanted but was never able to have. And so she liked the idea of that perfect family picture, especially if she could be involved.

Now, she didn’t accept Thalia as a Grace, but she was obviously willing to try and turn that around for her. And she had started with the one person that was a little more impartial in his opinion of her, seeing as all the information - or most of it - that Luke had on her came from Thalia. 

Jason could only imagine the drama of telling her he was in a relationship with a man and he wasn’t in any way planning on changing that. He was very certain of his mother’s traditional thinking and underlying homophobia. It was something he didn’t want to worry about during Christmas.

“I had a lot of deadlines.” He said in the end, sluggishly sitting up and yawning.

“Okay.” He saw his mother reach back for her book from the corner of his eye. “If you say so... But you can tell me things, you know?” 

“Hm-hm!” Jason leaned closer to place a kiss on her cheek and get up from the sofa. He was running away, and he knew that was something both of them were aware of. “I’m going to shower.”

“Of course you are...” 

He smiled at the comment muffled by the sound the of ruffling pages of *To the Lighthouse* and made his way up the stairs.

“ _You’re just being a baby. Which doesn’t surprise me._ ”

Jason ended up lying in bed instead of going to shower after receiving an unexpected text from Nico. They rarely got to talk due to the time difference and, since he wasn’t in a rush, Jason just decided to video call him - something Nico argued with for the whole of two seconds before deciding that making fun of the posters from his teenage years that still hung on the wall behind him was more productive.

“Oh, wow.” He pretended to be wounded by the comment, but he was just finally happy to see his boyfriend again. “You think I’m baby?” 

They had been talking about how Jason didn’t feel especially confident about Luke’s relationship with his mother.

“ _Not_ baby.” Nico huffed out a quiet laugh and shook his head against his pillow before he corrected him. “A _baby, you idiot._ ”

Again, Jason couldn’t really take any offence in their little exchange. And even if he wanted to try to fake a little discontent, he didn’t think he could bring his facial muscles to do anything else other than smile.

He hadn’t noticed how much he missed talking to Nico until his dim lit face showed up on his phone screen. He guessed all the running around and the navigating of the minefield that was his family relations just distracted him enough to be satisfied with the random check up text. And Nico didn’t seem to be very invested in their conversations either.

He looked rested, though, and so comfortable it made Jason’s chest ached with relief. He expected to see a very stressed Nico Di Angelo, who much like him had his own family battleground back in San Francisco. He was happy that his forecasts had been wrong.

“Hey, how are you doing?” Jason asked, supporting his face in both his hands and feeling his stubble start to rub against his palms as he moved. 

Nico wrinkled his nose. “Good... My family is going to Brazil in a couple of days.” 

Jason picked up on Nico’s tone and guessed that his father had pulled a surprised trip and hadn’t included him again. He gave him a sympathetic smile, not knowing what else to say about he and hoping his phone wouldn’t go silent because he add nothing to add.

“ _Yeah_...” he heard the soft air rush of Nico’s sigh on the microphone. “ _I’ll be at Will’s, it’s okay._ ” 

“Are you-“ He stopped with his mouth half open, his words caught in midair as he he heard a louder than normal sound outside his door.

He dismissed it as it didn’t continue after a few seconds of his attention and tried to focus on the conversation again. “Sorry, I-“

He dragged the letter on his tongue as the sound outside his room returned, this time louder and continuous. Jason looked over his shoulder with a frown before looking back at his phone, a tired Nico already nodding and letting half his face disappear under his duvet. 

“ _Yeah, yeah. Go on, momma’s boy._ ” He said, his eyes lighting up and the soft banter.

Jason gave him a dry _Ha Ha_ and picked up his phone to start walking to the door. “Goodnight, babe.”

“ _Ew_.” 

That was the last thing he heard from Nico before he stepped into the second floor corridor of the house, and he was content that the reaction the pet name had triggered in his boyfriend was the one he was expecting. 

Nico hated pet names. He accepted that Jason had nicknames for everyone and everything, but anytime he tried to call him by anything other than his name, it got vetoed. But he kept trying and the way Nico was so adamant to steer Jason away from the _babe_ s, the _darling_ s and the good ol’ _handsome_ s just left him with a smile on his face. They’d get there.

But his smile was quickly replaced by the focused look of curiosity as his socks started dragging down the carpeted floor of the corridor. Jason looked down at the screen of his phone, checking the clock for the first time since he has started talking to his boyfriend and he was surprised to find out it was little past midday. This meant that he would possibly be returning to his mother, after hours of supposedly having a shower, still looking very unfit for the public eye. 

Hopefully they didn’t have guests downstairs.

Jason didn’t entertain the thought that guests could be causing this racket for long. His mother wouldn’t let a stranger witness such a drastic change of volume in a conversation, so there were very little options for who could be so exhaled that they were audible throughout the whole house. He skipped a few steps as he made his way down to the living room, getting progressively more worried as the unmistakable tone of Thalia’s voice echoed through the walls. 

Jason knew a handful of people who had made Thalia lose her temper. His sister had a short fuse, but she had learned to train her out of proportion reactions over the years, especially after spending such a long period of her days dealing with entitled and disrespectful drunk idiots. But there was the occasional person she dismissed her control for: Jason, who had been on the sharp end of the stick a few times for his teen typical immature behaviours; Luke, who she didn’t snap at often but got a special brand of her rage whenever they had a nastier fight; June, which was very self explanatory; And, of course...

He was the first person Jason saw when he reached the half open door of the sitting room. After all, he had the sort of presence that dimmed everything around him and made him the very obvious center of attention whenever he entered a space. It looked like it was always him against the rest, and Jason had never wanted that for himself. If he had to put that essence into simpler words, he’d say that his father transpired loneliness.

Jeremiah stood with his back to the wall, elbow propped on the edge of the fireplace and his eyes focused on moving fingers. He had his salt and pepper hair neatly pushed away from his face, light reflecting on the thin layer of gel, or wax, or whatever he used to keep it immobile. Jason didn’t know. He never cared enough to know.

His father was wearing one of his typical tailored suits, and he didn’t know if he had ever seen the man on anything but expensive business wear. It suited his cold aura of power. It made it easier for Jason to see him less as a father figure and more as someone his mother had a commercial relation with, because that seemed to be the nature of their arrangement most of the time. 

He seemed... unbothered. By the yelling. By the obvious tension in the room. Jeremiah Grace looked like he might be pondering what to have for lunch, and not being yelled at by his daughter. 

“And who do you think you _are_ -“ Thalia looked ready to push their father through the very solid wall behind him. 

Jason couldn’t see her face, but she had the stance of someone who was getting ready to run a marathon, one foot in front of the other and her shoulders leaned forward. Jason was sure that, if she decided to lash out, no one would notice until she made it all the way across the room.

“I’m your father.” Jeremiah interrupted her and even Jason got the urge to snort.

Thalia did it aloud for the both of them.

“No, you lost the right to call yourself that a long time ago.” She spit out, the poison in her voice so palpable that even Jason felt a little ill. “And with it, the right to speak to me like that.” 

“I’m only stating a fact, girl...”

His father’s voice was the polar opposite of Thalia’s. He sounded almost monotone, unimpressed. His voice was low and it had always made Jason’s bones tremble, like it vibrated deep under his skin as he spoke. Like the feeling of thunder before you see the flash of lightning in the distance. 

He didn’t need to raise it to be heard.

“The fact is that he is better than he was when under your care!” Thalia snapped back. “Money isn’t everything, _dad_.”

Jeremiah lift his gaze to look at his daughter. Instead, his eyes locked on Jason, who still hadn’t moved from under the wooden doorframe. His dad’s expression was, as per usual, unreadable, but it didn’t stop him from feeling like he was being inspected like an auctioned piece at an art gallery. Like the man was deciding if Jason was worth raising his bid for or if he had no interest whatsoever.

“Yes, it most certainly isn’t...” Even speaking words of agreement, the sentiment wasn’t there as Jeremiah inhaled loudly and looked away from both his children. “Nature over nurture... as it would be. With such... _rotten_ nature.” 

The air in the room deflated a little as it was filled with more movement. A few things happened at once, while Jason was still standing still, stunned by his father’s presence in his own house. 

His mother, who was standing a step in front of her husband acting as a symbolic wall between him and Thalia, sighed. Her shoulders dropped as she turned slightly on her heels to look at the man who had just perpetuated an unnecessary argument. Maybe she was just disappointed he’d just thrown a few more moments of painful worlds and unfixable bonds onto the table. Or maybe she was genuinely concerned for how his children would take an unwelcome jab at their dead biological mother.

Luke seemed to have an opposite reaction, stiffening next to Thalia, his eyes expectantly travelling through her expression. He seemed to subtly tighten his grip on her arm, knowing too well there was two ways she could take this: she would either retaliate with all her might or retreat. He only moved to follow Thalia’s gaze as she turned.

Jason locked eyes with his sister, her electric blue irises piercing into him, trying to get an accurate feel of his emotions. He didn’t have a great perception of what his face might look like, but she still seemed to manage to get a clear message from their silent conversation. He didn’t know what to do.

“We’re going to a hotel.” Thalia concluded with a small voice, not making an effort to look back at the couple behind her.

The fact that had chosen to step back was a surprise. Although, if he really thought about it, it shouldn’t be as unexpected that she had, once again, put her impulsivity aside for Jason. 

And there it was... the guilt. What had he ever done for her to deserve selflessness?

She didn’t look back at Jeremiah, walking towards the door instead. The silence around them just intensified Jason’s need to sink into the floorboards and disappear. That knot in his throat growing as his sister lovingly rested her hand on his chest, shooting him an apologetic smile. Thalia thought she had to apologise for not standing for this, not wanting to stay. She didn’t include Jason in her _we_.

“Cowardice.” Jeremiah sighed, buttoning his blazer and marking the finality of their conversation. “You’re just like her.”

The part of the conversation he had witnessed left him uncertain as to how to proceed because the relationships in the room were mostly fragile and complicated. And, so far, it has been the usual back and forward of expressions of disappointment and opening of old wounds. 

But this snapped Jason out of his stupor. 

There was one thing that was deeply shared by him and Thalia, something neither of them would ever admit out loud but that they both knew it was there. Neither wanted to be compared to either of their parents. Jason was always scared of coming off cold and detached like his father, but Thalia was especially afraid of being similar to Beryl. 

All Jason knew about his biological mother was learned through Thalia and he knew just how much she despised her actions, how much she thought the woman had been the epitome of selfishness and arrogance. Which was nothing like Thalia. She was stubborn, yes. Explosive. Impulsive and sometimes too bluntly honest. But her heart was always in the right place. 

And there was this man, who didn’t know her and never wanted to, who would have ignored Jason’s existence too if he couldn’t somehow benefit from it, purposefully making his sister feel bad. And he knew his father knew very well the impact his words would have on Thalia. 

He wasn’t going to stand for it.

“No.” Jason tried to keep his voice strong and determined. “You don’t speak to her like that.”

“I beg your pardon?” 

Jeremiah sounded angry, like he always did when he felt like he was being disrespected. Well, Jason knew where he could stick his respect.

“You have no right-“

“Jason!” June took a step forward, but he was expecting this.

It hurt him to do so, but Jason glared at his mother and shook his head once. “No. Don’t.”

She seemed to get the message, but she still looked offended that he directed his anger at her.

“You have no right to make any comment on who _my sister_ is or on what she has accomplished without _your_ help.” Jeremiah stood straighter as Jason spoke, but his father’s growing discontent didn’t stop him. “Absolutely no one in this room owes anything to you or your damn mistress, especially Thalia! And she _has_ done a much better job at parenting me than you have ever done anything in your sad life.”

“Jason, that’s enough!” June tried again, which only upset him more.

“Yes mother, it is enough.” He shook his head and offered her a bitter smile. “I just wish it were enough for you, too. Because i’ve never met anyone so entitled to their immorality as your husband. If that even means anything to him.”

He saw Luke’s lip twitch into a small smile before he lowered his head to hide his content, crossing his arms over his chest. Thalia was still looking at him, as stunned as he had been before their father had decided to make this unnecessarily hurtful.

“We’ll be gone in an hour.” Jason added, putting an arm over Thalia’s shoulder as he turned to leave.

He let Luke pass him into the corridor before glancing back at his father. “Oh! And huh...” 

He didn’t think he had ever seen that expression on interest on the man before, mostly because he didn’t see his father a lot. Although the anger was still very present, there was a hint of curiosity that Jason imagined was the only thing that led to his father disagreeing with June when she tried to argue the fact that they were leaving.

“...Merry Christmas.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my name is Reyes and I struggled with this and still don’t like it.  
> Hopefully the next ones will come easier. 
> 
> I had a plan, I lost the plan and now I’m lost in my own path for this fic, but we gettin’ there!
> 
> I had a very specific idea for this chapter but then I couldn’t put it into words and well, this is what I ended up with.
> 
> I hope you’re still with me despite everything (:
> 
> See ya on the next one.

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know what to tell you, I wanted a College AU Jasico fic, so I wrote myself one.
> 
> It’s a work in progress but I’m invested! 
> 
> It’s also my first big writing project and I really hope you’re enjoying it!
> 
> All hail the soft boys and... and stuff ;)


End file.
